Creating Cost Options for Client Proposals

Cost Options live within your estimate, under Estimates > Cost Options. They let you offer a customer an optional upgrade, such as a deck or additional tiling, alongside your base proposal, so the client can review it separately and choose to approve or decline it before signing.

A Cost Option is a costed, optional item attached to an estimate rather than built into the base scope. Until the client approves it in the proposal, it sits outside the base total; once approved, it's added to the total and reflected in the Job Budget.

Once your estimate is complete, navigate to Estimates > Cost Options and select + Cost Option. Name the option and use Categorise Cost Option to assign it a category. Every item added must sit under a Cost Category. Use + Cost Category to create one, and, for larger cost options, + Cost Group to nest a cost category under a group. Add items to a cost category directly with + New Item, bring in a pre-built assembly with + New Assembly, or pull one from your catalogue with + Catalogue Item. You can apply markup at the overall, category, or individual item level.

Once the details are complete, choose Save and Release to publish the Cost Option so it's available to add to a proposal document, or Save and Approve to approve it manually yourself, without it going through client sign-off. A Cost Option's status (Draft, Released, Declined or Approved) is tracked from the Cost Options overview screen.

With the Cost Option released, open your proposal or create one from the Documents tab. In the side panel, expand Estimate and tick Include cost options to add the Cost Options section to the document. This automatically pulls in every released Cost Option for that estimate; to leave one out of a specific document, revert it to Draft status first.

The section lists each included Cost Option by name and price, alongside a running Quoted Price, Approved Options total, and Total Adjusted Price, so the client can see how their decisions affect the final figure.

When the client opens the proposal document, each Cost Option appears under its own Cost Options heading, listing the option's name, price and a status dropdown (defaulting to Awaiting Approval). Before signing and submitting the document, the client must select Approved or Declined for every Cost Option to ensure the agreed contract price reflects their decisions.

As they action each option, the Approved Options and Total Adjusted Price figures update to reflect their choices, alongside the base Quoted Price. The client can download a PDF copy of the document at any time using Download PDF.

Cost Options give clients a clear way to weigh up optional upgrades without complicating the base proposal, and keep your Job Budget accurate as soon as they're approved.

If a mistake is found after release, you can set the Cost Option's status back to Draft using the status drop-down and make your edits, regardless of its current status. Reverting to Draft also removes the Cost Option from any proposal document with Include cost options ticked, so check whether it's already been sent to a client before making changes.