The client remembers choosing matt. The order said gloss.
Selections are the largest source of disputes on a residential job, and almost all of them come down to the same thing: nobody wrote it down. Colour Selection is the schedule that does — room by room, against the items you priced, signed off and hard to argue with six weeks later.
Available on the Builder plan
Six weeks later the bathroom is tiled, and somebody is paying to redo it
The client remembers choosing the matt tile. The order went out for gloss. Nobody wrote down which one was agreed, so now it comes down to whose memory is more confident — and you are the one holding the invoice either way.
A selections schedule is the record that prevents that. It is also the document that gets signed off, which is what makes it useful precisely when memories differ.
And the commercial half
Most PC and PS items are in a bill because the client has not chosen yet. When they do, the difference between their choice and the allowance is avariation.
If nobody is tracking that difference, it is not a variation. It is margin you have given away without noticing.
Rooms, not cost centres
A client chooses for the kitchen. They do not choose for cost centre 1100. The schedule is organised the way they think, and connects underneath to the way you price.
- Kitchen
- Tapware
- Sink mixer
- Benchtops
- Stone benchtop
- Appliances
- Oven
- Cooktop
- Tapware
- Main bathroom
- Tapware
- Basin mixer
- Shower mixer
- Tiling
- Floor tile
- Wall tile
- Tapware
What each item carries
Item code and name, the description, the price and quantity — and the specific product chosen, with its SKU and image.
That last part is what makes the schedule enforceable. “Matt, 300×600, this SKU” is a fact. “The matt one” is a conversation.
Estimate, select, approve, update
Five steps, each done by the person who should be doing it, with the numbers carried through rather than re-keyed.
- 1
The estimator sends the items across
Price the job, then send the items that need choosing to the selections schedule — a category at a time, straight from the estimate.
- 2
The consultant and the client choose
In the office, or through a private link the client and their interior designer open on a phone — pictures, prices and allowances included.
- 3
The builder approves
Each selection is approved by the office. Anything over its allowance becomes a variation from the same screen.
- 4
The estimate is updated
One button pushes the approved selections into the BOQ items. You see “this will change the estimate by $1,240” and confirm it — nothing moves silently.
- 5
The orders are updated
The same push updates every purchase order that has not been sent. Sent orders are listed so you can re-issue them, never changed behind the supplier’s back.
What it is wired to
A selections schedule kept in a spreadsheet is a second set of numbers to maintain. This one reads from the estimate and writes to the order.
BOQ items
Selections are made against the items you actually priced — and once approved, pushed back into them, with the change to the estimate shown before you confirm.
Products
The specific product chosen, with its SKU and image, so there is no ambiguity about which finish was picked.
Purchase Orders
The same push updates every order not yet sent, so what was selected is what gets bought. Sent orders are listed, never silently changed.
Variations
A selection above its allowance becomes a variation — which is where most of the margin on a job quietly leaks away.
Let them choose on their own phone, standing in the kitchen
A private link, no login. They see the schedule grouped the way yours is — orby room, when they flip the switch — pick from the products you put on each item, and confirm. Nothing is final until you approve it.
You decide what they see
Read-only or choosable. Money shown or hidden — allowances, prices and the running difference are one tick, so a client who should not see your allowances does not.
One live link at a time
Set it to expire in 30 days, 90 days or never, and revoke it whenever you like. Creating a new one kills the old immediately.
Sent from your own address
Email the link opens a message in your mail program, already addressed and worded, so it arrives from you with your signature — not from a no-reply nobody trusts.
Approving a selection does not move the money. This does.
Approval records what the client chose. Until you run Update estimate, the BOQ item still carries the product the estimator allowed for — and so does any order raised from it.
One step copies the chosen product onto the BOQ item so it prices from the real product, carries the quantity where it differs, and pushes both onto every purchase order line for that item that has not been sent yet.
It never touches an order that has already gone out, never changes whether an item is included, and never alters your markup. You see exactly what will change, line by line, before anything is written.
Or turn it into a variation
When a selection lands over its allowance, the difference is chargeable.Create variation from selections builds one from the approved choices, so the client's upgrade becomes a priced variation instead of a number you absorb.
Something you can put in front of a client
The schedule prints and exports as a document the client can review and sign — with the columns you want on it and the ones you do not left off.
- Choose which columns appear, per company
- Print or export the schedule room by room
- Prices shown or hidden, depending on who is reading
- Products carried through with SKU and image
The discipline that makes it work
- Build the schedule from the priced items, not from scratch.
- Record the choice when it is made, not at the end.
- Raise the variation the moment a selection exceeds its allowance.
- Get it signed off, then push it into the estimate and the orders.
Steps three and four are the ones that get skipped, and they are the two that cost money.
A closer look at selections
The schedule, the products, and the document the client signs.
What it connects to
Nothing in SmarteBuild is an island — that is the point of it. Colour Selection reads from and feeds into these.
Variations
Price a change, get it approved, and carry it into the contract
Purchase Orders
Raise orders straight from the BOQ and send them without re-keying
Bill of Quantities
The costed spine of the job — items, rates, markups and margin
Price Lists & Products
Your own rates, kept current, ready to drop into any estimate
Want the detail?
The help centre documents Colour Selection step by step, with worked examples — written for people using it, not for a brochure.
Start with one job and see
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