Custom Estimate Pages

What it is

Custom estimate pages are the pages you write yourself that sit above and below the pricing on every estimate you send. A cover page with your promise to the customer, a page of photos of past work, your warranty terms, a signed-and-scanned contract you have always handed out on paper — all of it can be built once and then rides along with every estimate automatically.

You build the pages once, as a company template, under Settings›Quotes & Docs›Estimate Settings›Estimates›Pages & Terms. From then on, every new estimate starts with a copy of that template already in it. On any single estimate an office agent can still reword a paragraph for that one customer without touching the company version.

The pages you author show up in three places, always identically: the customer portal the customer opens from your email or text, the PDF they download, and the Preview panel you look at while you write them.

A short page stays short. Nothing here reserves a whole sheet of paper, so a two-line closing note takes two lines and never prints as a blank page.

When to use it

• You want a branded cover page in front of the price so the quote reads as a proposal.
• You always attach the same warranty, contract or spec sheet PDF by hand — put it in the template and stop attaching it.
• You want photos of finished work, certifications or badges between the cover and the pricing.
• You want a closing "what happens next" note under the terms, above where they sign.
• You want the customer's name and today's date printed onto an uploaded PDF automatically, instead of writing them in by hand.
• One particular customer needs a sentence changed — you can retouch that one estimate without editing the company template.

Use Estimates instead when the change belongs to the pricing itself (line items, deposit, tax), and Documents Hub when you need a document several people sign in turn — the pages here are part of the estimate, and the estimate is signed once, by the customer.

Before you start

• Only owners and admins can build the template. Settings›Quotes & Docs›Estimate Settings is admin-only — anyone else who opens the link is sent straight back to the Dashboard.
• Editing one estimate's pages needs Estimates access. That is the Estimates switch under Settings›Team Roles, in the Management group. Without it the person never reaches the estimate screen at all.
• Fill in your company details first. Your logo, phone, email, website and address come from Company Settings and the Branding tab next door. The Preview panel uses the real ones, so fill them in before you judge how the page looks.
• Have your files ready. Photos are resized for you, so a normal camera photo is fine. A PDF must be 12 pages or fewer, and in practice you want it under 10 MB — see Limits to know.
• Terms are shared with invoices. The Terms & Conditions box on this tab also feeds your invoices. The pages above and below are estimate-only.
• Existing estimates will not change. Each estimate keeps its own copy of the pages from the moment it was created. Building the template today does nothing to a quote you sent last week — see Where each part appears.

Step-by-step

Build your company template

1. Open Settings›Quotes & Docs›Estimate Settings.
2. Stay on the Estimates tab at the top, then click the Pages & Terms tab. The card is titled Estimate Pages & Terms.
3. You are looking at three numbered areas down the left: 1. Above the estimate, 2. Terms & Conditions and 3. Below the estimate. The Preview panel on the right updates as you type.
4. Under 1. Above the estimate, click Add block and pick Heading. Type your cover title, for example your company name or "Your proposal".
5. Click Add block again and pick Text. Write your opening paragraph in the box.
6. Keep adding blocks until the page reads the way you want. Drag the handle on the left of a block to move it up or down.
7. Do the same under 3. Below the estimate for your closing content — a warranty summary, a thank-you note, what happens after they sign.
8. Scroll to the bottom and click Save Pages & Terms. You get a Settings saved successfully message.

Made a mess? The Undo button at the top right of each editor steps backwards, and Ctrl-Z (Cmd-Z on a Mac) works while your cursor is inside the editor.

Drop in the customer's name, the total or today's date

1. Click into the heading or paragraph, at the exact spot the value should appear.
2. Click Insert field next to Add block.
3. Pick one from the list. It is grouped into Customer, Estimate, Company and Date.
4. The field lands where your cursor was, not at the end of the box. Carry on typing around it.
5. Check the Preview panel — it fills the field in with sample details so you can see the sentence read properly.

Add a photo

1. Click Add block and pick Photo.
2. Click Choose photo and pick the file. It is resized automatically while it uploads.
3. Fill in Caption (optional) if you want a line of text under it, and Describe the photo so people using a screen reader know what it shows.
4. Use the S / M / L / Full buttons to set how wide it sits, and the three alignment buttons to put it left, centre or right.
5. To swap it later, click Replace.

Attach a PDF and stamp the customer's details onto it

1. Click Add block and pick PDF.
2. Click Choose PDF and pick the file. You will see Reading PDF… then Uploading page 1 of 4… as it works, and a message saying how many pages were added.
3. Every page now shows as a picture, with a Drop a field here button above it.
4. Click Drop a field here on the page you want and pick, say, Customer Name. It appears near the top-left corner of that page.
5. Drag it onto the right line. For fine control, click it once and nudge with the arrow keys — hold Shift for bigger steps.
6. While a field is selected, a small toolbar appears above the pages: S / M / L for text size, four colour dots (black, blue, red, green), and a bin to remove it.
7. Repeat for every value the page needs — name, address, total, today's date.
8. Click Save Pages & Terms.

Force a new page in the downloaded PDF

1. Click Add block and pick Page break.
2. Drag it to sit exactly where the new sheet should start.
3. In the Preview it shows as a dashed line reading Page break · PDF only. On screen the customer portal is one long continuous page, so a page break changes nothing there — it only affects the PDF.

Reword the pages on one estimate only

1. Open Estimates from the left menu and open the estimate (or click New Estimate to start one).
2. In the classic layout, scroll to the Notes card and find Estimate pages at the bottom of it. In the document-style editor (the ✨ New editor button), the same editor sits at the very bottom of the document, under the notes and signature area.
3. You get two areas, Pages above the estimate and Pages below the estimate, holding the copy this estimate inherited.
4. Edit the wording in any text or heading box, remove a block with the bin, or add a simple one with Add block — here that menu offers Heading, Text, Bullet list, Divider and Space only.
5. Photos and PDFs inherited from the template appear as a small grey strip reading Photo from your company template or Warranty — 3 pages from your company template. You can delete one from this estimate, but you cannot swap it here — that happens in Settings.
6. Click Preview at the top to open the Customer preview window, then Save.

The reminder under the editor says it plainly: photos, PDFs and layout are set once in Settings, and edits here change this estimate only.

How to check it worked

• The template saved: a Settings saved successfully message appears after Save Pages & Terms. Leave the page, come back to Pages & Terms, and your blocks are still there.
• A PDF uploaded: you get a message saying how many pages were added, the line above the pages reads the file name and page count, and every page is drawn below it.
• The pages read properly: the Preview panel beside the editor shows the whole document top to bottom — your pages, your letterhead, sample line items, your terms, then your closing pages. The note underneath reminds you the customer details are samples and real data fills in automatically.
• A field resolves: in the Preview, an inserted field shows a real value in bold (for example a sample customer name) rather than the raw text you picked it from. If you still see curly brackets, the field name was typed by hand instead of chosen from Insert field.
• A real estimate inherited it: create a brand-new estimate and open Estimate pages in the Notes card. Your template content should already be sitting there.
• The customer will see it: click Preview on the estimate. The Customer preview window is the real portal, with signing and payment switched off, so what you see is exactly what they get.
• The PDF matches: in that preview, use Download as PDF. The button reads Generating… while it builds. Open the file and check your pages, photos and page breaks landed where you expected.

Common mistakes

• Typing a field by hand. Always pick it from Insert field. A name you invent yourself is printed to the customer exactly as typed, curly brackets and all.
• Editing the company template when you meant one customer. If you are on Settings›Estimate Settings, you are changing every future estimate. To change one, open that estimate and use Estimate pages in the Notes card.
• Putting your terms in a text block. Terms belong in the 2. Terms & Conditions box. That is what the customer formally accepts before signing, and it is also what your invoices use. A paragraph block is just words on the page.
• Looking for photos or PDFs on the estimate screen. The per-estimate editor deliberately has no uploads and no reordering. It is for retouching words, not building a document. Everything else lives in Settings›Estimate Settings›Pages & Terms.
• Leaving empty blocks behind. A heading with no text, a paragraph with no words or a photo with no file simply does not print. That is harmless, but it still counts towards your block limit — delete them with the bin.
• Assuming the uploaded PDF stays searchable. Its pages become pictures, so text inside an uploaded PDF cannot be selected or searched in the estimate you send. The fields you drop on top are drawn as real text.
• Forgetting to save a multi-option estimate. Ordinary estimates save as you type. On a multi-option estimate the editor warns you that changes are kept only when you press Save.
• Building an enormous template. There is a size ceiling as well as a block count. If you go far past what fits, the blocks at the very end are dropped when it saves — reopen Pages & Terms after saving a big template and check everything is still there.