Price it the way you already do. See the margin before you send it.

An estimate is a set of sections you name: Demo, Framing, Plumbing, Finishes, whatever you price by. Each line has a description, quantity, unit, unit cost, cost type (material, labour, equipment, subcontract or other) and a markup.

Mark a line optional and it stays out of the total. On the proposal, the client can tick it as an add-on, and the price they sign includes only what they ticked. A line can also carry a note for the client, separate from your own description.

The cost catalog holds your items: a code if you use one, a category, unit, cost, default markup and supplier. Add a catalog item to an estimate and its name, unit, cost and cost type come with it, along with its own markup if it has one.

Bring your existing price list in from Excel or a CSV, or paste rows straight from a spreadsheet. You match the columns, see a preview of what will be added and what will be updated, and nothing is written until you say so. When lumber moves, adjust a whole category or cost type by a percentage in one step.

An assembly is a bundle of catalog items with a quantity of each per unit: a linear foot of 2x6 wall, a square of shingles, a bathroom rough-in. Add it to an estimate with a quantity and it expands into priced lines you can still edit.

The summary runs left to right in the order the price is built: cost, markup, contingency, subtotal, each tax, total. Under it sit the gross profit in dollars and the margin as a percentage. The margin turns amber below 15 percent and red below 10, because a thin job is the most expensive mistake an estimate can let through.

Markup and margin are not the same number, and the gap is where profit goes missing. A 20 percent markup on cost is a 16.7 percent margin on the price. Ridgepole shows both, so you price for the margin you meant.

• 10% margin needs 11.1% markup
• 15% margin needs 17.6% markup
• 20% margin needs 25% markup
• 25% margin needs 33.3% markup

Every estimate carries a federal rate (GST or HST) and a provincial rate (PST, RST or QST) as separate figures, each with its own line in the summary. Each line is taxed one of three ways: both taxes, the federal tax only, or neither. That is what lets one estimate charge GST only on labour beside GST plus RST on materials.

Your rates and the starting treatment for each cost type are set once in Settings, pre-filled from your province, and every pre-fill says where it came from. For Manitoba and BC, labour starts at GST only. That is a starting point for you to confirm, not tax advice: how your contracts are taxed is a question for your accountant.

Revise an estimate and you get the next revision under the same number, EST-0007-R2, with the old one kept. Any signing link sent from the old revision stops working the moment you revise, so a client cannot sign last week’s price.

Save any estimate as a template and start the next one from it. A template brings its sections, lines, markup and measurements, and takes today’s tax settings rather than the ones in force when it was saved. An estimate that was sent or became a job cannot be deleted, because it is the record of the price the client was shown.

A Chrome extension that saves a supplier’s price into your cost catalog while you are on their website. It recognises the item you already have, even when the supplier words it differently, and offers to update the price rather than add a duplicate. It connects with a code made in Settings, which only an owner, admin or project manager can create.