Estimates

Every line on an estimate keeps two numbers apart: what the work costs you, including any tax you pay on it, and what the client pays. Price a line by a markup over its cost, or type the price directly. The totals show your internal cost, gross profit and gross margin next to the price, and compare the margin with the required margin your organization set under Organization, Finance.

Lines come from three places: typed by hand, pulled from your price book, or imported from a CSV or XLSX file with a Description column. Obra reads every number in a file the same way, as 1,234.56 or as 1.234,56, and when it can't tell which one a file uses it asks you to choose instead of guessing. Importing the same file again replaces its lines instead of adding them twice, and Undo import removes every line an import added. Save any estimate as a template to start the next one from it.

Group the work into sections — Demolition, Kitchen, Bath — and put each line under one from the line's form; lines under no section come first. The document shows every section with its own subtotal. Mark a line optional and it is priced and shown but counted in no total: on their link the client ticks the ones they want and the total updates before they sign, and when you mark an estimate accepted yourself you tick them for them. Their choice is frozen with the acceptance, printed on the signed PDF, and carried into the project's contract and budget and into invoices built from the estimate; an optional item nobody chose is not billed and teaches the price book nothing.

Type the first letters of a price book item in a line's description and Obra fills the unit, cost, markup and category from it. When a client accepts an estimate, its lines feed the price book: an item you typed or pulled from the book learns the accepted cost, and a line the book didn't know becomes a new item marked as not reviewed until you confirm it. Accepting a price is not the same as verifying a cost, so nothing is confirmed on your behalf.

Give the estimate a kind of work — remodel, new build, repair — and the editor shows what your financially closed jobs of that kind actually spent per category, next to this estimate's costs, with each job named and its contract size shown. These are totals from past jobs, not expected costs: two remodels can be very different sizes.

Draft with AI turns a description of the work into proposed lines, each with a reference cost and the assumption behind it. A reference cost is what this kind of item commonly costs — not your cost — so every AI line carries that label until you edit its number. Obra can also put your lines into your categories and list what estimates like this one commonly forget. The AI only ever sees your own categories, price book and lines, and it never issues, accepts or changes a number you typed.

You can also say the job instead of typing it. In Draft with AI, press Record and describe the work; the words land in the scope box for you to check before you draft the lines. From WhatsApp, send a voice note to Obra's number from your linked phone and Obra creates the estimate in your active organization, titles it from your first sentence, drafts the lines and replies with the link — owners and admins only. A voice note spends one AI draft for the transcription and one for the lines; the recording itself is never kept.

A photo works the same way. In Draft with AI, press Add a photo of the job and pick or take a picture of the space or the damage; Obra describes what it shows — the space, its condition, the materials it can see and the work that implies — into the scope box for you to check and correct before you draft the lines. Add photos one at a time and build the scope up. A photo spends one AI draft for the description and one for the lines, never names a price, and the picture itself is never kept.

Each request uses one AI draft from your organization's monthly allowance, shown in the drafting window. Drafts, categorizations and checklists all count the same.

Before you issue, every line needs a category and the estimate needs a client and a total above zero. Issuing gives the estimate its number, like EST-0007, and freezes version 1 exactly as it is. Nothing you change afterwards alters what the client was offered: revising the estimate puts it back in draft, and the next issue becomes version 2 with the same number and the same currency. If someone changes the estimate while you have it open, Obra asks you to look again before you issue it or record the client's answer.

Each issued version gets a PDF a minute or so after you issue it, with your organization's name, the client's, every line and the totals, in the language your organization uses. It never shows a cost, a markup or a margin. Download it from the estimate, or send it: Obra emails the client the PDF and a private link, from your organization's name, with replies going to you.

The link opens the estimate in the client's browser with no account. There they can download the PDF and, while the version is the one waiting on an answer, sign and accept it — they type their name and agree to a short statement that they are signing electronically — or decline it with a comment. Obra records the name, the statement, the time and the network the answer came from, shows the signature on the estimate, and gives both of you a signed PDF to keep. Sending again, to the same address or another, makes a fresh link and stops the previous one; you can also stop a link yourself at any time, and every link stops working on the estimate's valid-until date or when a newer version replaces it.

If the client doesn't answer, Obra follows up for you: 3, 7 and 14 days after you emailed the estimate it sends a reminder with the PDF and a fresh link, until the client accepts or declines, the estimate is withdrawn or revised, or its valid-until date arrives. Sending it again yourself restarts the count. Each reminder appears in the estimate's list of links, and you can turn follow-ups off for one estimate from its page, or for the whole organization under Organization settings.

You can also copy a link and share it however you like. It is shown once, when you create it; make another if you lose it. A client's acceptance is an electronic signature in the sense of the US ESIGN Act and UETA — a typed name, executed with intent and consent, tied to the exact version signed and kept with its record. Obra is not a law firm, and whether that is enough for a given contract is a question for your own advisor. The project is still created from your side, so anything that stands in its way, like a full plan, is shown to you and never to the client.

When the client says yes, mark the estimate accepted, or let their answer from the link do it. Obra creates the project, or fills the one you linked, with the estimate's total as its contract and its internal cost per category as its budget. The accepted estimate stays the project's original plan, even if a later estimate replaces the contract and budget.

A linked project that already has a contract or budget is only replaced if you confirm it when issuing, and only if nothing changed on the project since. Change orders stay on top of the new contract. If the project can't be updated when the estimate is accepted, the acceptance is still recorded and the estimate shows a button to try again.

Estimates show your costs and margins and can create projects, so only organization owners and admins can open them. Everything is included when you export your organization's data.