Overview
After you create and enter primary details for an estimate, such as a name and summary, you're ready to build the estimate. An estimate should contain all details necessary to complete a job or project so it can populate your budget for estimated costs, such as labor, material, equipment. For more on how to create different types of estimates, see Create an estimate for Construction opportunities and Create an estimate for Commercial opportunities.
Who uses this feature
Accountants and managers
Applies to all business types
Feature configuration
Account configuration is required to use this feature. Please contact Technical Support for details.
Permission is required to use this feature. Please contact the account administrator on your team.
Things to know
When you create an estimate, you're also creating an opportunity if you don't sell the estimate immediately. Opportunities support multiple estimate options. This helps to better support your sales methodology for Good, Better, Best, or custom options as add-ons. For more on managing opportunities, see Follow up on opportunities.
If you create an estimate from a project, the estimate's business unit must match one of the project's assigned business units, if it has any.
Add estimate to an existing opportunity
Use project opportunities to add estimates to a project. This ensures that the items are accurately attributed to the right expense type and phase of the project. It also ensures that the items are displayed correctly in the Budget vs Actual and Expense Detail tables.
Note: Add costs to equipment or services that account for labor, but don't add a price to these items. This ensures that revenue and expenses are reflected accurately in your project. Once you sell the project estimate, the Project Summary, Budget vs Actual, and Expense Detail tables populate.
If you're building a new estimate for a project, you can add the estimate to an existing project opportunity you have.
After you create an estimate, the Build Estimate window opens. Select the Project Opportunity you want to add to the estimate.
Tip: Click the Arrow
to see the estimate's details.Click Next.
From the Add to Existing Opportunity tab, click the Business Unit dropdown and select a business unit (BU) for the estimate. Continue building the estimate by following the steps described above.
Add items and tasks to an estimate
You can add items and tasks to an estimate by project total, project phase, or line item.
Add items and tasks to an estimate by project total
If you created an estimate for your project outside of ServiceTitan, you can enter the final amount in your ServiceTitan project estimate and use the bid project total to ensure your expenses for the project are tracked in ServiceTitan. For more on adding project total to an estimate in ServiceTitan, see Set up a bid by total project.
Add items and tasks to an estimate by project phase
If you plan to bill your customer based on the phases of a project, add items and tasks to your estimate by line item to ensure that each billing phase has the correct expenses captured. For more, see Set up an estimate by project phase.
Add items and tasks to an estimate by line item
If you plan to bill your customer based on tasks completed, add items individually to your estimate. For more, see Set up an estimate by line item.
Add labor costs to estimate
You can add a budget for approximate labor costs:
In the estimate, click + Task.
From the dropdown field, select the labor service you created in the pricebook that you want to add to the estimate.
In the Quantity column, enter the number of hours you plan to use for this labor.
Update the Estimated Labor Cost field as needed.
When you're finished, click Save.
Note: Do not add a Unit Price to the labor service.
Manage project opportunities
To update project opportunity status:
Under the Opportunity field, click the Opportunity Number.
The Project Opportunity Follow-Up screen opens listing the estimate you just created.From the Project Opportunity Follow-Up screen you can click:
Sold/Convert to convert and sell an estimate.
Note: When you sell the estimate, all estimate items will be reflected in the Budget column based on its project and category label.
Add Estimate to add more estimates to the project opportunity.
Dismiss for an estimate if a customer doesn't accept the estimate.
Delete for an estimate if you want to permanently remove the estimate from ServiceTitan
Click View Project at the top of the screen to go back to the project for which you just created a project opportunity.
Create a project estimate
To begin building a budget for your project, create and add estimates to project opportunities:
Note: Add cost to equipment, chargeable materials, or services that account for labor, but do not add a price to these items. This ensures that revenue and expenses are reflected accurately in your project. Once you sell the project estimate, the Project Summary, Budget vs Actual, and Expense Detail tables populate.
Go to the navigation bar and click Search.
From the Search dropdown, select Location.
Click the search icon.
Select the location where you want to perform work.
Click Create Project.
On the confirmation pop-up, click OK to confirm that you want to create a project. A blank project opens.
From the Actions dropdown, select Build Estimate.
The Build Estimate pop-up opens.From the Select Business Unit dropdown, select the business unit you want. For example, HVAC.
To add an estimate to your project, select an existing estimate template. For more information, see Add an estimate template to an existing job.
Note: You can select multiple estimate templates.
When you're finished, click Done.
To see the estimates you just added to your project, go to Estimate > Opportunities and click the Project Opportunity number.
To add an existing opportunity to an estimate:
From the Actions dropdown, click Build Estimate. The Build Estimate pop-up opens.
Select the Project Opportunity you want to add to an estimate.
Tip: Click the Arrow
icon to see the estimate's details.
Build a new estimate
From the Actions dropdown, click Build Estimate. Or
If there are already existing opportunities, click the Create New Opportunity tab. The Build Estimate pop-up opens.
From the Select Business Unit dropdown, select the business unit you want. For example, HVAC.
Click Build Estimate.
The Create Estimates section opens, enter information as needed:
Customer and Locations—In this section you can see the customer details for whom you want to create an estimate.
General Details—In this section you can provide general details about the estimate.
Price Details—In this section you can provide information about following up and pricing.
Sale Information—In this section you can provide information about how the estimate is sold.
When you're finished, click Save.
The estimate is now linked to the project. You can add estimate items to the estimate. For more information, see Sell estimates in ServiceTitan.
When you add an estimate item to the project estimate, here are things to know:
As you add tasks, materials, and equipment to the estimate, you can apply labels in the Project Labels field. The order in which you add labels in the field is important because it determines the hierarchical relationship of this item in the Budget vs Actual table. For example, if you add a task with the project label in this order, Rough In, Labor, and Journeyman Labor, the task appears in the Expense Details nested under Rough In > Labor > Journeyman Labor.
Add estimated labor costs, but do not add unit prices to these items. This ensures that revenue and expenses are reflected accurately in your project.
Add a task to the estimate to budget for the expected contract value. The expected contract value is the total of prices, markups, and taxes of all labor, equipment, and materials that you plan to use for the project:
In the estimate, click + Task.
From the dropdown field, select the task that is created in your pricebook for revenue.
In the Unit Price column, enter the total revenue value.
When you're done, click Save.
Note: If you need to track revenue by phases or milestones, add a service for each phase or milestone with a price corresponding to how much of the total revenue you plan to bill for that phase or milestone. Create appropriate project labels and categories for revenue if you want the contract value to be separated in phases in the Budget vs Actuals and Expense Detail tables.
You can add a budget for approximate labor costs:
In the estimate, click + Task.
From the dropdown field, select the labor service you created in the pricebook that you want to add to the estimate.
In the Quantity column, enter the number of hours you plan to use for this labor.
Update the Estimated Labor Cost field as needed.
When you're finished, click Save.
Note: Do not add a Unit Price to the labor service.
You can add materials and equipment to an estimate in bulk or itemized.
Note: If equipment, tasks, or materials are itemized on the estimate, then they should only have an estimated labor cost and not a price to ensure the project budget amount is accurate. Only revenue line items should have a price.
You can add equipment or materials to an estimate as itemized, in bulk, and by project phase:
Add itemized equipment and materials—Add items individually to the estimate. You can also serialize your items. For more on serialization, see Serialized Inventory.
Add materials in bulk—Add one line item to the estimate as a material. The cost of this material is how much you're planning to spend on bulk materials for that estimate.
Add materials by project phase—You can also add project labels to materials in order to represent project phases. For example, if you apply the label, Rough In, to your material, then the cost of this material reflects how much you plan to spend on materials for the Rough In phase of your project.
Note: If you're going to use the same equipment, materials, or labor in more than one phase, add them as separate line items for each phase to which the equipment, materials, or labor belong. Make sure to apply the appropriate labels to the equipment, material, or labor in each phase. For more on labels, see Project labels.
When you're done building your estimate:
Under the Opportunity field, click the Opportunity Number.
The Project Opportunity Follow-Up screen opens listing the estimate you just created.From the Project Opportunity Follow-Up screen you can click:
Sold/Convert to convert and sell an estimate
Note: When you sell the estimate, all estimate items will be reflected in the Budget column based on its project and category label.
Add Estimate to add more estimates to the project opportunity
Dismiss for an estimate if a customer doesn't accept the estimate
Delete for an estimate if you want to permanently remove the estimate from ServiceTitan
Click View Project at the top of the screen to go back to the project for which you just created a project opportunity.