Reviewing uploaded proposals

When you upload proposals you've already sent, BidCraft reads them and shows you what it found. Nothing is saved until you say so. The review is two steps and takes a couple of minutes.

Step 1 — What we found

A list of the work BidCraft pulled out of your proposals. One row per service.

Everything starts checked. The checkbox is the whole decision: leave a row checked and it goes in your catalog, uncheck it and it doesn't. Most of what's here is work you actually sell, so the fast path is to skim, uncheck the odd one, and move on.

The names are yours. We keep your wording and only take the room out — "Primary Bath shower wall tile" becomes "Shower wall tile", so it fits any job. Tap any name to change it.

The prices come from your proposals. Each row shows what you've charged, labelled so you know where the number came from:

• from your prices — the number was printed on the line in your proposal.
• figured from your room prices — your proposal priced the whole room as one number, so we spread it across the square footage in that room to get a rate. It's our arithmetic, not something you quoted, which is why we label it.
• Needs a price — your proposals never priced this work on its own. Tap set one to type a rate, or leave it and set it later. We won't invent a number, and we'd never save it as $0 — that would have BidCraft quoting the work for free.

Two badges are worth knowing:

• Only seen once — we found this on one job. It stays checked; a service you did once is still a service you do.
• Double-check this — the scan was hard to read. These start unchecked. Give the name and price a look before you keep them.

Opening a row

Tap the arrow on the right to see every job that service appeared on — which room, what tile was on that job, the square footage, and the rate. This is the evidence behind the price, and it's the fastest way to spot a misread.

At the bottom of an opened row:

• Combine with… — if two rows are really the same work under different names, combine them. The row you opened keeps its name and the other row's prices join it, so you get one service with a fuller price history instead of two thin ones.
• Split into separate services — the opposite. If one row is lumping together work you price differently, split it and each job becomes its own row.
• Rename — jumps to the name field.

Splitting a room price

If your proposals price by the room — "Primary Bath, $20,000" with the walls and the pan listed underneath — BidCraft spreads that number over the room's square footage to get a rate. That's the "figured" rate, and for most people it's close enough. Nothing to do.

If you want it exact, tap Split on a room. You'll get one question:

Primary Bath was $20,000. How much of that was for the shower walls?

Type one number. The rest flows to the other work in that room automatically, and we show you the sentence — "The rest, $5,500, goes to the shower pan." There's also a by square footage it would be about $X link if you'd rather start from the proportional split and adjust.

A room with three or more items asks for one number per item except the last, which takes the remainder. The split has to add up to the room price — if it doesn't, we'll tell you rather than quietly rebalancing it, because that's your price history we'd be changing.

Splitting is always optional. Never mind backs out.

Step 2 — What I learned

This is how BidCraft will write your next proposal. Every line is a claim about you with a checkbox — read it, and if it isn't true, change the wording or take it off.

Which of your styles is this?

If you write more than one kind of proposal — a builder document grouped by room with one price per room, and something that reads completely differently for a homeowner — this is where you say which one you just uploaded. It matters, because whatever you pick here is what BidCraft learns from these files.

We take a guess first. BidCraft looks at the shape of the document — whether it groups by room, where the prices sit, how finely the work is cut, where the tile details go — and suggests the style that matches, with the reasons underneath: "Looks like your Builder style: grouped by room, one price per room, tile details under each room." It comes pre-picked, so if that's right, there's nothing to do.

If it isn't right, pick a different one from the list. Each style shows a one-line summary of how it writes, so you can tell them apart at a glance.

If this is a new kind of proposal for you, choose This is a new style and give it a name — Builder, Homeowner, whatever you call it. You can also say who it's mostly for, and then jobs you tag that way will start in this style automatically.

When a document doesn't have enough shape to tell — a short estimate with a couple of lines and no structure — we say so instead of guessing, and you pick. We'd rather ask than file it wrong, because the wrong style would go on to shape every proposal you write in it.

Uploading several files at once? They all get filed together under one style. If one of them doesn't look like the others, we'll name it, so you can upload that one on its own instead.

What we'll do differently

• How you lay out a proposal — what we noticed about the way you name your line items and arrange the page: whether you group the work by room, whether each room gets one price, how you list the tile under a line, how you mark side notes, and the lines you open every proposal with. Each one is a plain sentence like "You group the work by room, and each room gets one price." Uncheck one and we drop that part; reword one and your wording is what we save and write with. "Write mine this way" is the master switch over all of them.
• Rules I noticed — the things your proposals say outright, like what your price includes or the notes you put at the bottom of every job. These steer how BidCraft quotes for you. Tap any of them to reword it, or hit the × to drop it. You can add your own too.
• Pricing settings — the couple of facts that map to a real setting, like your waste factor or whether your price includes the tile. Each shows what you have set today so you can see what would change.
• Payment schedule — when you get paid. Most invoices only print the deposit, so if that's all we found, we fill in the balance and tell you we guessed. Change it if it's wrong.
• Start a template from this — leave it on and we'll offer to turn one of these proposals into a reusable project template after you save.

When you save, how you sound comes along too — whether you write as "we", how you speak to the client, how you open and sign off, with a few of your own words quoted. It goes into one short Voice learned from your past proposals section in that style's Additional style rules (under Writing style in Proposal Settings), refreshed from everything the style has learned each time you save — anything you wrote yourself in those rules is left alone — and every proposal in the style is written that way.

Then Save to my account. You can change any of it later under Proposal Settings and Pricing templates.

A few things worth knowing

Saving twice is safe. If you come back and save the same batch again, nothing duplicates.

Uploads add up, per style. The sentences about how you write are worked out from this upload plus everything else filed under the style you picked — so switching the style at the top of step 2 can change them, because you're asking about a different way of writing. Pick This is a new style and they're worked out from this upload alone, which is the right answer for a style with no history yet. Prices add up across everything: a row will tell you when the same work turned up in earlier uploads, and if you've already got a service for it, the row offers to add these prices to that one instead of making a second.

"These were read with an older reader." If you see this note, hit Read them again. BidCraft has gotten better at reading proposals that price by the room, and at telling the difference between the tile a client picked for one job and a service you actually sell. Your files stay put, and you still review everything before it lands.

Nothing here is permanent. Services, rules, and settings are all editable afterwards. The review is a fast first pass, not a final answer.