Estimate Configurations

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.

Estimates are used for:

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.

Make sure the following are already configured:

To create an estimate, you can navigate to the “Estimates” section in the portal and click “Add”.

The Estimate name is an open-ended field typically filled with the site name and the year or type of estimate, and customers commonly use the site name followed by the service/project type e.g. Doling Residence - Summer Maintenance - 2026

Estimate Number can be added manually to keep track of revisions.

Project types are configurable in the system and are used for both estimates and projects, and can be used as filters on estimate and project lists.

The Status field reflects the current stage of the estimate and can be updated manually (e.g., "Waiting on Customer" or "Approved"). When an estimate is first created, the status is set to "In Progress."

Estimate dates: Include an estimate date (the date the estimate is created or sent), and an expiry date (the date the estimate is valid until).

Project dates: A project start/end date (the expected project duration after the estimate is accepted and approved by a customer).

The Estimate revision field is a flat text that can be manually updated to indicate versions.

Site: Configure the site this estimate is being created for. (Link to be added here to configure sites)

Contact Info: Include details of the customer, this information can be used in the proposal document and can be added in via template variables.

Once you have filled out the General section you can move to Service Groups.

A Service Group represents a single service offering, including:

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.

When 'included' is checked the customer is billed based on the estimated quantities regardless of actual usage, and when 'included' is unchecked the customer is billed by time-and-materials based on actual usage.

Field rule: Create separate services when the field team must make separate submissions.

Example 1: Spring Cleanup can be a single service that contains multiple tasks; mowing, trimming, hauling/disposal or bagging. Will be marked as Included

Example 2: Mulching is often bundled with bagging and debris removal but can be offered as a standalone extra and billed independently. WIll be marked as Extra and billed based on quantity submitted via the app.

'Bill as Contract' defines services billed at a fixed price—such as a monthly or seasonal rate—rather than on a per-visit basis. For added flexibility, project extras can either be bundled into the main contract invoice or billed as separate line items.

'Bill Once' consolidates multiple tickets or jobs for a single site into a single line item per billing cycle. To prevent overcharging, the system automatically groups these tickets so that included components are billed once per invoice rather than repeating for every individual visit.

Service Group Line Items: Each group can include materials, equipment, parts, and labor. To ensure accurate billing and reporting, every line item features the following fields:

To add line items to the service group, navigate to the green + sign.

The"Bill By" Option where you decide whether you will be charging the customer based on quantity, man hours or visits.

Select the “Bill By” option. It can be either:

The Cost & Price determines your profit. Cost is what the item will cost you when being used for a service and the price is what you will charge the customer.

When a line item is added, the system automatically pulls the base cost and base price from service (to be linked) billing settings.

The Quantity Calculator helps estimate man-hours or material quantities when exact values are unknown.

It is typically used when:

To Add Site Area you can use of the 3 methods:

The “production rate” is set when configuring the service.

Example: In the case of mowing, the production rate was set to 0.1 Man Hr/ sq ft. This will automatically be pulled from the service in service group line items. The production rate can also be overridden in the calculator if needed.

Site-Take off forms are custom built forms that are used to collect site information. This data is then available to be used when generating estimates, accessing sites, generating proposals etc.

If your organization uses Site take off forms, the data can be integrated into Estimates.

To do that you will have to check “Show Take Offs” at the top off the Estimates menu.

You can now access Site Take off form values when entering rates in Estimates. This can also be accessed by using the production rate calculator.

For production rate calculations, the site take off values can be accessed from within the calculator

Once you have added all the Service groups and their associated line items, hit Save.

Proposals are composed of sections such as a cover page, introduction, scope of work, pricing, and warranty text, and proposal sections support inserts such as a page break to control layout of the generated PDF.

The system can preview generated documents by replacing template variables with site/estimate values to create the PDF output. Once finalized the proposal is ready to be shared to the customer.

Add a Cover page by navigating to “+ ADD” button.

Add the customer’s logo here.

The next section is the Header. Add information like the Customer name, Contact information, Site information, date etc.

You can add variables like “Customer Name” by Navigating to “Insert” on the top left. This will open a drop-down menu with available options that you can choose from.

The next section is the Pricing section. You can choose from the existing templates or reach Team Viaesys to save a template from your proposal.

Once you have selected a template, hit Apply and the template will automatically generate the pricing section.

The last two sections are “Terms and Conditions” and “Signature” depending on how you want to structure the proposal.

Once done, hit save.

You can now hit “Generate Proposal” to generate a PDF of the proposal document. This opens up a preview of the generated document.

This can now be downloaded, regenerated or shared with the customer directly from within the portal.

Go to “Send to Customer” to share the proposal directly from the portal.

Current 'send to customer' emails originate from [email protected] and send proposals as a link by default.

Field notes are essential for when the service is being performed to ensure any specific directions by the customer are not missed when the crew is servicing a specific site. They are entered on the proposal and are associated with tickets and scopes when an estimate converts to a project, making them visible to field staff.