Summary: What an Estimate is in Viaesys
An estimate is a costed forecast for work at a customer site. It combines expected costs with billing rules and selling rates, becomes the basis of a proposal, and can later be converted into a project that can be used for scheduling and invoicing.
The Estimates module is used to:
Build a detailed cost breakdown by visit, service, labour, material, and equipment.
Configure how and when the customer is billed.
Review expected margin and the estimated time-and-material picture.
Generate proposal documents for the customer.
Connect the opportunity to CRM and sales tracking.
The mental model
Everything in the module follows one hierarchy: an estimate contains one or more service groups, and each service group contains the line items needed to perform and price that work. These line items can be Material, Equipment, Labor, or Parts
Estimate → Service Groups → Line Items
Estimate: The overall estimate record containing the site, dates, project type, status, proposal, and totals.
Service group: a service such as Spring Cleanup or Weekly Maintenance and its components (labor, equipment, materials etc.).
Line item: A cost-and-price component inside a service group, such as labour, material, equipment, or a part.
Keep in mind: Service groups define what the customer sees on the proposal. Line items define what you pay for and bill for inside each group. The "Included" checkbox decides whether a line item is rolled into the contract price or billed as an extra. |
Building the Estimate
Pick a billing model
Model | How to configure it | Use when |
T&M | Charge per visit, hour, man-hour, or per quantity used. | The final charge should follow actual work or actual quantities. |
All-Inclusive | Use Bill as Contract and mark the contract line items Included. | The customer has agreed to one fixed total and you absorb normal production variance. |
Hybrid | Use Bill as Contract for the base work; leave variable or optional items not Included. | The base scope is fixed, but selected materials or services remain billable extras. |
One-line rule: Bill as Contract means the customer is billed the fixed contract amount and actual production does not change that base total. Without Bill as Contract, charge by visit or by the line item's measured quantity.
Decide what is a service vs. a line item
Keep work together when it is performed, submitted, and billed as one service. Split it when it needs its own visit record, approval, billing treatment, or operational schedule.
Example — one service: Mowing, trimming, edging, and blowing happen during the same weekly visit. Use one Weekly Maintenance service group and describe the task breakdown in its service notes.
Example — separate service: Bagging is optional and may be requested or submitted independently. Make it its own service or billable extra instead of burying it in the mowing line-item detail.
Field rule: Create separate services when the field team must make separate submissions.
Decide what is Included vs. Extra
Included line items contribute to the fixed contract total. Items that are not Included remain outside that fixed amount and are billed from submitted visits or quantities.
Contractor risk: When an item is Included, ordinary overages are absorbed by the contractor unless the agreement provides another adjustment mechanism. Estimate quantities and rates carefully before committing to a fixed total.
A common hybrid pattern is to include predictable labour and equipment while leaving variable materials, disposal, or customer-selected options as Extras.
Required fields
Name: use a recognizable customer, site, and scope description.
Site: select the location where the work will be performed.
Estimate and validity dates: define when the quote was created and how long it remains open.
Project start and end dates: cover the expected delivery period.
Project type: choose the category used for reporting and downstream setup.
Status: keep the estimate aligned with the sales stage, such as In Progress or approved status used by your organization.
Estimate header example: name, number, project type, status, site, and date fields.
Example Estimate
The rest of this guide walks one contract end-to-end. It is a full-season maintenance package for New Dundee Church, structured around three phases:
Spring Cleanup (1 visit — April) — One-time property reset after winter. Debris and leaf removal, full tidy blow of all surfaces, garden bed cultivation with edging, and haul-away. No mowing or turf repair included.
Weekly Maintenance (26 visits — May through October) — Once-weekly visits covering turf mowing, trimming, edging, and blowing. Beds cultivated and weeded twice monthly. General litter collection included; major debris removal quoted separately. Schedule may shift for weather or holidays.
Fall Cleanup (2 visits — November) — Two visits to close out the season. First visit handles leaf removal, perennial cutbacks, and general tidy. Second is a final clean — full leaf removal, final cut (weather permitting), complete bed cutbacks, and winter prep. All debris disposal included.
Estimate Settings for this estimate:
Site: New Dundee Church
Project type: Seasonal Maintenance
Status: In Progress (default)
Project dates: late April — October 31
Configuring Service Groups
Spring Cleanup — 1 visit
Service decision
Treat Spring Cleanup as one service because the debris removal, cultivation, edging, blowing, and disposal happen in the same visit and are billed together. Treat mulch top-up as an optional Extra because the actual need may only be known on site.
How to build
Add a service group named Spring Cleanup.
Set Visits to 1.
Select Bill as Contract.
Mark the labour and equipment line items Included; leave mulch not Included.
Line items
Type | Item | Bill by | Est. qty / visit | Included | Purpose |
Labour | General labour | Man-hour | 24 | Yes | 3 crew × 8 hours. |
Equipment | Truck | Visit | 1 | Yes | Cost and price the truck for the cleanup visit. |
Material | Mulch top-up | Quantity | Actual need | No | Optional material billed from submitted quantity. |
What Included does here: Labour and truck costs support the fixed Spring Cleanup price. Mulch stays outside the contract total and is billed only if the crew submits a quantity.
Spring Cleanup service group with labour and truck Included and mulch left as an Extra.
Weekly Maintenance — 26 visits
Service decision
Group the recurring turf and bed work under one service called Weekly Maintenance or Mowing. The crew completes one field submission for the weekly visit; the task detail belongs in the service notes rather than in separate services.
How to build
Add a service group named Weekly Maintenance or Mowing.
Set Visits to 26.
Select Bill as Contract.
Mark the recurring labour and equipment line items Included.
Use the service notes to describe mowing, trimming, edging, blowing, bed care, and exclusions such as optional bagging.
Service notes can hold the task-level scope while the field team submits one weekly service.
Line items
Type | Item | Bill by | Est. qty / visit | Included | Purpose |
Labour | General labour | Man-hour | 12 | Yes | 3 crew × 4 hours per visit. |
Equipment | Truck + mower + trailer | Visit | 1 | Yes | Recurring equipment package for each visit. |
Quantity Calculator: Calculate labour per visit first: 3 crew × 4 hours = 12 man-hours. Across 26 visits, Viaesys extends the estimate to 312 man-hours (26 × 12). Use the calculator to make the crew-size, duration, and visit assumptions explicit.
Weekly Maintenance example: 26 visits, 12 labour man-hours per visit, and one equipment package per visit.
Fall Cleanup — 2 visits
Service decision
Use one Fall Cleanup service group for the two planned visits when both visits belong to the same contracted phase and are submitted under the same service. Include the expected labour and equipment in the fixed seasonal price.
How to build
Add a service group named Fall Cleanup.
Set Visits to 2.
Select Bill as Contract.
Mark the planned labour and equipment line items Included.
Line items
Type | Item | Bill by | Est. qty / visit | Included | Purpose |
Labour | General labour | Man-hour | 24 | Yes | 3 crew × 8 hours × 2 visits = 48 total man-hours. |
Equipment | Truck + trailer | Visit | 1 | Yes | Base equipment package for each visit. |
Equipment | Vac truck | Visit | 1 | Yes | Separate equipment item when leaf collection requires it. |
Same-equipment limitation: The same equipment type cannot be added twice inside one service group. When the second use needs a different rate or operator treatment, create a distinct equipment/job code such as Vac Truck or Vac Truck Labour.
Fall Cleanup example with two distinct equipment items and labour for two visits.
Reading the Estimate
The Totals section at the top can be used to look at the summary of the estimate.
The Graph on the left gives a visual breakdown of the price of each component, Labor, Equipment, Material along with the percentage of profit.
This section also gives a detailed summary of the No of man hours for the estimate. This estimate has a total of 213 Man Hrs. You can click on “View Summary” to get a more detailed breakdown.
This graph shows the total Man Hrs for each service group. It uses the Est Man Hrs x No. of Visits to calculate Total Man Hrs.
Example Breakdown
Service | Est. Man Hrs | Visits | Total Man Hrs |
Spring Cleanup | 9 | 1 | 9 |
Mowing | 6 | 26 | 156 |
Fall Cleanup | 24 | 2 | 48 |
Total | — | — | 213 hrs |
Note: The Contract Cost & Price includes all the line items that were marked as “included” when configuring service groups.
Generating the Proposal
Now that the Estimate is ready, navigate to the proposal section to generate the proposal and send it to the customer.
Most proposals have the following sections that can be added and customized:
Header - This contains the company logo plus contact information such as customer name, site name, site address, etc.
Introduction - The Intro section contains a brief description about the services being provided and any details about a site inspection if one was done prior to the estimate.
Pricing - The pricing section will contain the breakdown of the contract by line items or it can also be structured to show a one-off contract price.
Signature - The last section is the signature section to sign-off and approve the proposal.
How to Generate a Proposal:
Search for a template title or hit “Apply Template” to select from a drop-down list.
2. Add a Header section. Add the logo and use customer variables from the Insert drop-down to add Customer name, address, current date, contact and site information.
3. Add the pricing section to your template. The two templates available to use are:
Standard pricing - Gives a breakdown of each itemized service
Total pricing - Rounds everything up into the contract price and only shows that
4. Once you are happy with the sections you can hit Save.
5. You can now hit Generate proposal to generate the PDF.
6. Preview the PDF before downloading or sending to the customer.
Convert to Project
Convert to a project and set the invoice schedule
After the customer accepts the proposal, convert the estimate into a project.
Confirm that the service groups, visit counts, Included items, Extras, dates, and selling rates carried forward as expected.
Select which service groups scopes or tickets should be created for.
Then create the contract invoice schedule that matches the agreement, such as equal monthly invoices, seasonal installments, or approved milestones.
The schedule controls when the fixed contract value is invoiced; it does not replace field submissions used to track production.
Helpful Reminder
Before finalizing an estimate, confirm:
The site, dates, project type, status, name, and estimate number are correct.
The billing model matches the agreement: T&M, All-Inclusive, or Hybrid.
Each service group matches how the field team should submit the work.
Visit counts and quantities reflect the crew, duration, material, and equipment assumptions.
Included items belong in the fixed total and Extras are intentionally left outside it.
Cost rates, price rates, expected margin, proposal scope, and downstream service/GL mappings have been reviewed.
Final sanity check: Read the proposal as the customer, then read the service groups as the field crew. Both views should describe the same job.