User Guide
Estimator & Price Book
A specialist pricing tool for cabinetry and custom built-ins. You describe the job — size, wood, door style, hardware — and Jobmand prices it from your rates. The Price Book holds those rates; the Estimator applies them.
Quick overview
| Price Book | Estimator | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Your rates for every option you offer | A configurator that prices a job from those rates |
| How often you touch it | Rarely — when costs change | Every time you quote a job |
| Who uses it | Whoever sets prices | Whoever quotes work |
| Output | — | A priced, itemised estimate you can save and reuse |
Both are Pro plan. Everyone on the plan can view; only admins can create, edit or price.
Where to find it
Financial (admin)
├── Estimates
├── Estimator ← configure and price a job
├── Price Book ← your rates
├── Invoices
└── …Before your first estimate
The Estimator has nothing to price with until a price book exists, so this is the order:
One-time setup
- Open Price Book. On a new company it offers Create price book — click it.
- Jobmand creates a book pre-filled with every option it knows about — cabinet types, wood species, door styles, finishes, hardware, installation, labour.
- Every price starts at 0.00. That is deliberate: Jobmand never guesses what you charge.
- Work down the list and enter your real rates. The amber banner counts how many are still at zero.
- Now open Estimator.
An estimate built on a zero price book totals zero. It isn't broken — it's telling you the rates aren't in yet. Fill the categories you actually sell before quoting anything real.
Price Book
One row per thing you charge for. Filter by category, or search by name or code.
The five pricing methods
The method decides how a row turns into money, and which field you fill in.
| Method | What it does | You fill in |
|---|---|---|
| Base Rate | The starting rate, multiplied by the measurement | Unit price |
| Additive Rate | Adds on top of the base — an upgrade | Unit price |
| Fixed Price | A flat charge, regardless of size | Unit price |
| Percentage | A share of a running subtotal | Percentage |
| Multiplier | Scales a subtotal — 1.00 changes nothing | Multiplier |
The edit dialog only shows the field your chosen method uses, so you can't fill in the wrong one.
Editing a price
Edit on any row. Beyond the rate itself:
- Material / Labor — which subtotal this lands in. It drives the material-vs-labour split on every estimate.
- Taxable — whether tax applies. Labour is usually not.
- Active — uncheck to retire an option without deleting its history. Inactive rows stop appearing in the Estimator but stay on estimates that already used them.
- Minimum charge — optional floor for small jobs.
Retire, don't delete. Unchecking Active keeps every past estimate readable. Deleting a row you have quoted from makes old estimates harder to explain.
Bulk adjust
When your supplier raises everything by 6%, don't edit forty rows. Bulk adjust takes a category (or all of them) and a percentage — negative to reduce — and tells you exactly how many prices it will touch before it commits.
Bulk adjust changes rates going forward. Saved estimates keep the prices they were built with — see Snapshots.
Estimator
The list shows every saved estimate with its number, customer, status and total. New Estimate opens the configurator.
Building an estimate
An estimate is the job — "Smith remodel" — and it holds one or more items: the kitchen, the vanities, a mudroom built-in. Each item is configured and priced on its own, and the estimate total is the sum of its items.
- Details — the estimate name (required), optionally the customer and project it belongs to, and customer-facing and internal notes; only the customer notes are meant to leave the building.
- Items — one tab per item. A new estimate starts with one; Add item adds another. Click a tab to edit that item.
- Item name and Configuration — for the selected item: product category (cabinetry or custom built-in), how it is measured, the quantity, then your selections: cabinet type, wood species, door style, drawer construction, finish, hardware, installation. Then the counts — cabinets, doors, drawers, hardware pieces, labour hours.
- Adjustments — waste %, markup %, discount, tax. They belong to the item, so the vanities can carry a different markup from the kitchen.
The option dropdowns are filled from your Price Book. A category you never priced shows — none — and nothing else.
Working with items
- Duplicate item copies the selected item, with all its selections — the fast way to add a second room built the same way. Rename it and change what differs.
- Remove item takes the selected item out of the estimate after you confirm. An estimate always keeps at least one item.
- A red dot on a tab means that item is missing a required selection. The estimate can't be saved until every item prices.
- Saving re-prices only the items you changed. Edit the vanities and the kitchen keeps the prices it was saved with.
An estimate saved before items existed opens as a single item named after the estimate — nothing to redo.
The live breakdown
The column on the right re-prices as you type. On top, each item with its total and the estimate's grand total. Below, the selected item in detail: its priced lines, then material, labour, additional charges, waste, markup, discount, tax and the item total — plus a per-unit figure, which is the number worth sanity-checking against what you know that room should cost.
Jobmand does the arithmetic, not the browser. Every figure comes back from the server, so the total you see is the total that saves. If a required selection is missing, the panel says so in red instead of guessing.
Snapshots & recalculating
Saving locks in the prices as they are at that moment. Change the Price Book afterwards and the saved estimate does not move — a quote you gave a customer shouldn't change on its own.
To bring one up to date, use Recalculate (the circular-arrow button on the list). It re-prices every item, shows you the old total against the new one and asks before overwriting. If prices haven't moved it tells you that and changes nothing.
Duplicating
Duplicate copies an estimate, with all of its items, to a fresh draft with a new number. This is the fast path for a repeat customer or a second option on the same job — copy, change the one thing that differs, save.
Estimator vs. Estimates
Two different tools with confusingly similar names.
| Estimates | Estimator | |
|---|---|---|
| What you enter | Free-text lines, your own prices | A configuration; Jobmand prices it |
| Best for | Any job at all | Cabinetry and built-ins specifically |
| Send to customer for signature | Yes | Not yet |
| Convert to an invoice | Yes | Not yet |
| Plan | Starter | Pro |
See Estimates, Invoices & Payments for the customer-facing side.
Common workflows
Quote a kitchen and vanities
- Estimator → New Estimate; name it after the job
- Pick the customer and project so it doesn't get orphaned
- Name the first item Kitchen; measured in Linear Foot, enter the run
- Choose cabinet type, wood, door style, finish, hardware, and enter the counts — cabinets, doors, drawers
- Add waste and markup; watch the per-unit figure
- Add item, name it Vanities and configure it the same way — or Duplicate item and change only what differs
- Check each item's total and the grand total, then Save estimate
Give the customer two options
- Build and save the first version
- Duplicate it
- Open the copy and change the one variable — usually wood species or door style
- Save, and present the two totals side by side
Absorb a supplier price rise
- Price Book, filter to the affected category
- Bulk adjust, enter the percentage, check the count it reports
- Apply — new estimates use the new rates immediately
- For a live quote you have not yet sent, open Estimator and Recalculate it
FAQ & Troubleshooting
- Every total comes out as 0.00.
- The price book is still at its starting values. Open Price Book — the amber banner counts the rows still at zero — and enter your rates.
- The Estimator says it needs a price book.
- Your company doesn't have one yet. Click through to Price Book and Create price book. Admins only.
- A dropdown is empty.
- No active items in that category. Either you haven't added any, or they're all marked inactive.
- I changed a price but an old estimate didn't move.
- Working as intended — saved estimates keep the prices they were built with. Use Recalculate to update one deliberately.
- Can I send an Estimator estimate to a customer to sign?
- Not yet — that's the Estimates module. For now, rebuild the total there.
- Why can't I edit anything?
- Creating and pricing is admin-only. Non-admins can view.
- I don't see Estimator in the sidebar.
- Both screens are Pro plan. Below Pro they're hidden.
- Can one estimate cover several rooms?
- Yes — that's what items are for. Add one item per room or area (kitchen, vanities, laundry); the estimate total is their sum. See Working with items.
- What's the difference between waste and markup?
- Waste covers material you buy but don't install — offcuts. Markup is your margin. Waste is applied to cost; markup on top of that.
- My percentage or multiplier row seems to be ignored.
- Those apply to a subtotal, so check its Applies to setting matches what you meant — a percentage of the material subtotal is not a percentage of the whole estimate.
Need help?
For training, access, or feature requests, contact your Jobmand admin. For bug reports include the screen name, what you clicked, what you expected, and what happened instead — with a screenshot if possible.