The Estimate builder lets you preview project costs, margins, and timelines, helping you assess profitability. You can also share estimate information with your clients.
Note: To confirm if your paid subscription has access to the Estimate builder feature, visit our pricing page.
Estimate builder
By default, only account Owners and Partners can access estimates.
To access the Estimate builder, go to the Client Management tab in the left sidebar and select Estimates.
Here you can create your first estimate. You'll be required to add an estimate 'Title', 'Client' and you'll have the option to add a 'Rate Card':
Once you've created an Estimate, you can break it down into multiple sections (e.g. research, design, implementation):
In each section, you can add the items and services you plan to offer along with the following details:
Item - your item title
Description - a description of your item
Unit - select flat fee, hourly, or day rate
Quantity - total quantity
Role - the role responsible for the item
Price - the pricing for the item
Estimate - the estimated number of hours required
Markup - the markup percentage
Discount - the discount percentage
Assignee - assign the item to a team member
Cost Rate - the hourly rate that the item will cost your business
Dates - the date range that this item/task will take place (if any)
When you add these details the following information will auto-fill:
Cost - projected cost
Profit - projected profit
Margin - profit margin percentage
Once all of this information is added, you will see a full breakdown of the Estimate Totals for your total price, total cost, profit, and margin:
Create a project from an Estimate
You can create a project from your Estimate by selecting 'Create Project' in the top righthand corner:
When creating a project from an estimate, you can select which estimate sections you want to include in the project. Your project's initial billing fee, budget, dates, and team will be set based on the sections you selected.
You also have the option to convert estimate items into project tasks. This creates a task for each item in the sections you selected, with the task name, description, assignee, estimate, and dates set based on the item's details:
Finally, you can choose to create project allocations based on your estimate items. This will create a resource allocation for each item that has an assignee, estimate, start date, and end date set. (Note: Each of these properties needs to be set on an item for an allocation to be created.)
Connecting an Estimate to a Deal
When you create a Deal in Bonsai, you can navigate to the Deals' 'Estimates' tab to connect or review connected Estimates for that client:
