AI for contractors and the trades: quotes, follow-ups, and invoices

1. The quote, from the customer's text and your price list

A homeowner texts: "How much for the front bed — old shrubs out, mulch, a few plants that don't die?" You've written that quote two hundred times, and it still takes twenty minutes at the kitchen table.

You paste: the message, with the phone number and street address taken out, and your price list from the spreadsheet.

You get: a draft quote in your own format — items and prices from your list, a total, your start-date line, your "not included" line — with anything it wasn't given in [brackets] and a question for you.

You check: every number against the list. Every quantity: it estimates six shrubs from the customer's words; you know it's four from the drive-by. The "not included" lines are your policy, not its idea. Then you fix the brackets and send. About four minutes, once it's set up; setting it up is about forty minutes of a Session.

What it gets wrong: in the first week it will invent a price for something not on your list — edging, say — unless it's been told to bracket instead. Your price list gains a row, the instruction gains a line, and it stops. The quote Workflow in the catalog →

2. The follow-up, 48 hours after the quote

Thursday morning: five quotes out, three unanswered. You'd follow up if it didn't feel like begging.

You paste: two lines. "Quoted: front bed, $1,128, sent the 24th. They mentioned: a graduation party in May."

You get: three short follow-ups in your own tone, one question each, none of them pushy. You pick one and reply on the original thread so they see the price again.

You check: does it mention anything you didn't tell it? One version will say "the photos you sent" when there were no photos; that version goes. No discount you didn't decide on. One question per email — two feels like pressure.

What it gets wrong: it will write "circling back" until you tell it never to. Then it won't. The follow-up Workflow →

3. The job write-up into invoice lines

The crew lead texts what they did: "Pulled six shrubs, prepped the bed, 3 yards mulch, planted the five threes and eight perennials, hauled off." Somebody has to turn that into an invoice.

You paste: the text, and the photo captions if there are any.

You get: line items in your format — description, quantity, unit — ready to paste into QuickBooks or whatever you invoice with.

You check: the quantities against the job sheet. It formats; it doesn't count. It reads "3 yards" and writes 3, and if the lead typed "three-ish" it will guess.

What it gets wrong: it rounds, it merges two items into one, it picks a unit you don't use. Each of those is one line in the saved instructions, fixed once. The invoice-lines Workflow →

If there's room: photos into posts

Monday, last week's photos. Five photos, one line each about the job, and you get five captions in your voice for whatever you post with. The rule: no customer name or street in a caption unless they said yes, and the tool doesn't know who said yes — you do. The social-posts Workflow →

What it won't do

• Answer the phone. Nothing here picks up.
• Price the job. It arranges your prices. It doesn't know what the supply house charged you on Tuesday, how far the drive is, or that the back gate is 30 inches wide.
• Know the weather, the supply house's stock, or the crew's schedule. It has read the internet. It hasn't read your week.
• Replace anyone. It saves the evening hour of typing. It doesn't swing a hammer.
• Run itself. Everything above works by copy-and-paste — that's the floor, and it's enough. The "AI agents" that promise to do it for you are a different product, a fragile one, and not what we set up.

What you need

A phone. A laptop at some point in the day. Your price list in a spreadsheet or a document — if it's in your head, Session 1 starts by writing it down, which is worth the Session by itself. A free ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini account. No new software, no integrations, nothing to wire up.

Three questions contractors ask