The estimate is the product. Most of them are never followed up.
Every project starts as a number in a document, and the difference between a good year and a bad one is what happens in the two weeks after it is sent. Almost nobody systemises that fortnight.
Thirty minutes · no predetermined package
What an unmanaged estimate pipeline feels like.
An estimate goes out and nothing happens until the client calls, which is usually never.
Three revisions exist for the same project and nobody can say which was sent.
Crew capacity is in someone's head, so jobs get sold into weeks that are already full.
Change orders are agreed verbally on site and invoiced hopefully.
Subcontractor availability is discovered by phoning around when the job is already scheduled.
Margin per job is calculated at year end, which is far too late to change anything.
What you are probably running, and what constrains it.
The typical stack
What the rules require
Six questions before changing anything.
How a project actually arrives.
Enquiry
referral or searchHomeowner or GC, usually comparing two or three contractors on responsiveness before price.
Site visit and takeoff
the estimateMeasurement, scope and pricing — the deliverable that decides everything downstream.
The follow-up fortnight
where jobs are wonTwo weeks of silence loses more work than price does, and almost nobody systemises it.
Scheduling
against real capacityCrew, subs and permits, which are three different constraints treated as one.
Change orders and close
margin, finallyAgreed in writing, billed on time, and reconciled while it can still change something.
What contractors ask.
What should a CRM for construction do that project management does not?
Handle everything before the job is won — the enquiry, the estimate, the revisions and the follow-up. Buildertrend and Procore begin after the contract, which is after the risk.
Why do estimates go cold?
Because nothing follows them up. Most contractors send a number and wait, and the client chooses whoever stayed in touch rather than whoever was cheapest.
How should estimate revisions be handled?
As versions of one record with a clear sent state, so there is never ambiguity about which number the client is holding.
Can crew capacity be part of the sales process?
It should be. Selling into a week that is already full is more expensive than declining the work, and only a system can see it in time.
How do change orders get captured properly?
In writing, against the job, from the site — usually on a phone. Verbal agreement is how contractors fund other people's projects.
Does this integrate with Buildertrend or Procore?
Yes. The usual pattern is the project system keeping the job and the CRM keeping everything before it, with the handover happening on acceptance.
How do you track margin per job in time to act?
By costing against the estimate as the job runs rather than reconciling at the end, which requires the estimate and the accounting to share a structure.
What about licensing and permits?
Both constrain who can work where, and both should be facts the system checks rather than things a scheduler remembers.
What does a project like this cost?
It scales with integration count — estimating, project management, accounting — rather than with crew size.