A quote app for carpenters — because demo always finds something

Three ways carpenters do work they never bill

• Rot and termites don't show up in quotes. You price a deck rebuild off the top boards. Underneath, three joists are punky and there's termite damage in a bearer. You fix it — no choice, you're not building on that — and it becomes “a bit extra for the joists” muttered at handover instead of a signed variation at discovery.
• “While you're set up, could you also…” Extra shelving in the pantry. Different door hardware, which means re-boring what you'd already drilled. Floating shelves in the alcove. Each one is a small yes on site that's forgotten by the time the invoice goes out — or worse, remembered by you and disputed by them.
• Other trades move your goalposts. The plumber needs the wall furred out 40 mm, the sparky wants noggins moved for a switchboard, and suddenly you're reframing work you'd finished. It wasn't your change, but if it isn't documented as a variation the builder or owner saw, it's your cost.

The pattern is the same every time: the moment of agreement happens on site with a tool in your hand, and the paperwork moment never comes. So make them the same moment.

Found under the deck, priced before smoko

“Told Dave, he's good to go” is exactly the sentence that costs carpenters money — a verbal yes with no paper behind it. Here it becomes a variation on the Harrison job, next to the original quote, that Dave can see in writing before you cut a single joist. Snap a photo of the rot into the job note while you're under there; at invoice time the extra work has a document and a picture, not a story. How to make these stick is covered in how to document extra work.

Quoting carpentry work by talking it through

New jobs run the same way. Walk the site, then talk the scope like you'd explain it to your apprentice: demo, frame, fix, hang, materials by you or by them, and your numbers per stage or as a lump sum. Timmy turns it into a structured quote draft — “supply and install 90 × 45 MGP10 frame to new pantry wall” rather than the scribble on a offcut that usually stands in for a quote. Itemised stages matter for carpenters specifically: when the rot shows up later, a staged quote makes it obvious the extra work sits outside what was priced.

What Timmy asks when a carpentry note is missing details

When an important detail is missing (a price, a customer, a scope item), Timmy asks rather than making it up. On carpentry notes, the gaps it chases are:

• No number on the extra. “Add floating shelves to the alcove” with no price becomes a scoped line with the amount left open, and Timmy asks you for it. It will not guess a price for custom joinery — nobody can, including it.
• Which job? If you've got two decks on the go, “the deck job” gets a clarifying question before the variation attaches anywhere.
• Materials ambiguity. If the note doesn't say who supplies the hardware or the timber, it asks — supply assumptions are where door-hardware changes turn into losses.

Straight answer on fit

Built for solo tradies and small owner-operated trade businesses (roughly 1–5 people) in australia. If you're a solo chippy or run a two-or-three-person crew, and quotes go out at 9 pm from the couch, this is aimed at you: it moves the drafting to the moment the work is agreed. It is not job-management software — no scheduling, no timesheets, no Gantt charts — and it won't run your contracts for you; drafts aren't legal advice. It drafts quotes, variations and payment follow-ups, you approve everything, and it's iPhone only for now. If most of your work is fixed-price subcontract for one builder with their own variation process, you'll get less out of it than an owner-operator quoting homeowners will.

Common questions