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Build an Estimate with Services, labor, parts, Sublets, fees, and discounts

You build an estimate on the Estimate tab: Concerns on the left, Services on the right grouped under Customer requested, Urgent, and Recommended, and a bottom bar with running totals and the Authorize and Send buttons. Each Service is a card that holds its own labor, parts, fees, Sublets, discounts, and notes, and the customer decides on Services as whole units, so the core loop is: capture the concern, add a Service that addresses it, fill in its lines, repeat.

Editing needs update permission on the document and its services; see Assign Shop Roles, shop access, and User Permissions.

Standalone Estimates and the Estimate tab on a Repair Order​

The same builder appears in two places. A standalone Estimate is its own document under Documents, for quoting a customer whose vehicle may not be at the shop; it can be created with no customer or vehicle at all, and carries a follow-up date, internal notes, and a single odometer reading (the Estimate Mileage). A Repair Order has an identical Estimate tab, so a walk-in that starts as an RO never needs a separate estimate document.

A standalone Estimate moves through statuses: draft, sent, viewed, approved, declined, expired, and converted. Convert to RO in the header requires a customer and a vehicle that belongs to that customer. Conversion copies everything to the new Repair Order: Concern Groups, Reasons For Visit, Services with their lines, fees and discounts at their original scope, the tax config, the advisor, and the odometer reading. The Customer Portal link carries over unchanged, the estimate becomes read-only, and its header links to the RO. See Create or convert a Repair Order.

An RO's Estimate tab stays editable until the visit ends: it locks after Invoice Finalization, Close Without Sale, or void, with a banner explaining which one happened.

Concerns anchor the build​

The Concerns column lists the document's Concern Groups: problem areas holding the customer's Reasons For Visit and staff-observed Technician Concerns. Reasons For Visit come from the appointment or check-in; Technician Concerns come from staff or from inspection findings. See Set the Reason For Visit, Visit Type, odometer, and Promise Time and Record Technician Findings, notes, and media.

The column filters to unaddressed concerns by default, so it works as your to-do list: a group with no linked Service still needs an answer. Each group card has two actions:

  • Add service creates a new Service already linked to that group.
  • Link service attaches an existing unlinked Service to it.

A Service card shows its evidence at the top of the body, under "Customer reported" and "Technician findings", pulled live from its linked groups. Clicking a line of evidence scrolls to the concern.

Add a Service​

Add service on a concern card or on any group header opens one dialog with four tabs:

  • Estimator drafts the Service with AI from a prompt. Opened from a concern group, the prompt is prefilled with that group's reasons and findings. Estimator-built Services arrive marked Needs review and must be checked before they can be sent.
  • Canned service searches your templates; select several and add them in one step. Templates bring their labor, parts, fees, discounts, and notes with them. See Create and use Canned Services.
  • Labor guide searches MOTOR labor guide operations for the document's vehicle (it needs a vehicle with a valid VIN, and the tab only appears for users with labor guide read permission). Check one or more operations; expanding a row lets you choose its estimated work time and any additional or optional work (an operation added without expanding uses its base time). Add service creates one reviewed Service per checked operation: one labor line per selected time at your default labor rate, and the operation's required parts as unsourced part lines waiting for a source.
  • Manual takes a name and creates an empty Service.

One quirk worth knowing: the Add service button on a group header (including the Customer requested header) creates an unlinked Service, and unlinked Services always land under Recommended. To put a Service under Customer requested, add it from the concern card or link it to a Reason For Visit afterward.

Each Service card's row menu also offers Duplicate, Hide from customer, Save as canned service, and Delete, plus the review and decision actions covered in Send Estimates and Inspections to customers and Record authorizations, declines, and deferred work. A Service can be assigned to a technician from the card header, and every edit autosaves as you type.

Labor​

Click the pencil on a Service card to edit, then Add labor. A labor line is a description, an optional per-line technician, hours, and a dollars-per-hour rate; the line total is hours times rate. The rate field starts empty and takes any number, and once created the line owns its rate permanently; changing your labor rates in Financial configuration never touches lines already written. See Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes. Add from labor guide on an existing card is not wired up yet; labor guide times enter as whole Services through the Labor guide tab of the Add service dialog, described above.

Parts​

Add part is a menu, because parts come from different places:

  • Inventory opens the picker for parts you stock. The line arrives priced from the part's Inventory Pricing, linked to real stock, and if another shop in your organization has the part, you can request a transfer and the line waits on it.
  • Manually creates a blank line where you type the name, brand, part number, quantity, cost, and price. This is also the path for parts you will order from a vendor.
  • PartsTech opens a quote session in a new browser tab with the document's vehicle carried over. Build a cart there and submit it; each selected item lands on the Service as a vendor line with its quoted cost, priced by your part markup rules. The entry is disabled, with a tooltip explaining why, until PartsTech is connected and its suppliers are set up in Configurations → Parts → Integrations.
  • Labor guide is listed but not wired up yet.

Pricing follows the part markup rules: when a line has a cost and you have not typed a price, the markup suggestion fills the price and keeps recalculating as the cost changes, until the Service is authorized. Typing a price marks it manual, and manual prices are never overwritten; a Reset button appears on manual lines, with a tooltip previewing the current suggestion and whether it comes from Part Markup or the part's Fixed Retail. The full pricing model is in Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes.

Sublets​

A Sublet is work you pay another business to do: machining, glass, a transmission rebuild. Add sublet creates a row with a description, a vendor picked from your Vendors list, your cost, your retail price, and a work status (Planned, Dispatched, In progress, Completed). There is no markup suggestion for Sublets; you price them directly. A Sublet needs a vendor before it can move past Planned, and once it is dispatched to a purchase order its cost and vendor lock.

Fees and discounts​

Add fee on a Service opens the Shop's available Service Fee Templates. Choosing one creates the fee immediately with the template's current name, formula, cap, and taxability copied onto the Service. Users with permission to update Shop Settings can instead choose Custom fee… and enter a name, fixed amount, and taxability. Editing a Fee Template later never changes a Fee that is already on an Estimate or Repair Order.

Add discount on a Service searches the Shop's available Service Discount Templates. Choosing one copies its fixed or percent formula onto the Service; its calculated amount updates from the Service's current lines even before staff review. The name stays tied to the snapshot, while the amount can be overridden to fixed or the row removed.

The Fees and discounts section below the Services always shows the document's order-level Fees and Discounts, including automatically applied Fees. Add fee and Add discount use their order-scope template pickers. Each row shows its current quoted amount and can be overridden to a fixed amount or removed.

Sections and ordering​

The three Service sections are derived, not chosen. A Service linked to any Reason For Visit shows under Customer requested; otherwise a linked critical Technician Concern puts it under Urgent; everything else, including unlinked Services, is Recommended. The same grouping appears on the Customer Portal, and the section titles can be customized in settings. To move a Service between sections, change its concern links, not its position.

Within a section, drag Services by the grip handle to reorder them; the order is saved and mirrors to the portal. Inside a card, line rows reorder with the move up and move down actions in each row's menu.

Totals and tax​

Every Service card ends in a financial row: subtotal, taxes, total, and gross profit as dollars, percent, and GP per billed labor hour. The bottom bar sums the proposed estimate across Services (labor, parts, Sublets, fees, discounts, subtotal, taxes, total), leaving out hidden Services and Services the customer has declined.

The Taxes metric in the bottom bar opens a popover where you can switch the document to a different tax config and set the per-document exemption override (inherit from the customer, exempt, or taxable). Each Service also has taxability checkboxes for its labor, parts, Sublets, and fees. Tax is live: it recalculates as lines change and when the config's rates change. Rates, exemption setup, and the confirmation gate that blocks sending against an unconfirmed config are covered in Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes.

What changes after sending and authorization​

Sending needs a customer on the document and at least one visible Service, and if any Service is still unreviewed you are asked to review it first. Sending does not lock the build - you can keep editing, and the next Send delivers the current state. See Send Estimates and Inspections to customers.

Authorization is the boundary that matters. Once a Service is authorized, it can no longer be hidden, automatic part repricing on cost changes stops, and raising its customer-facing price flags the card with an amber "+$X since authorization" badge until the customer re-approves or you revert the change. See Record authorizations, declines, and deferred work and Collect deposits and revise previously authorized work.