The most accurate price is the one a trade actually gave you
An estimate built from historical rates is a guess refined by experience. An estimate built from what your trades have just quoted is a fact. Quotes Received is where those prices land, get applied to the bill, and keep a link back to who said them.
Available on the Estimator plan and above
A quote is only useful once it is priced in
Where a quote prices your items, apply it to them directly. Each item takes the quoted rate and keeps a Related bid link back to the quote it came from.
Set the supplier on those items at the same time. It takes a moment, and it is what lets the purchase order assemble itself later instead of being typed.
Why the link matters
Six weeks on, somebody asks why the roofing rate is what it is. With the link, the answer is one click: this trade, this quote, this date, this document.
Without it, the answer is “I think that came from a quote” — which is not an answer.
Most trade quotes are one number for the whole scope
Two ways to handle that, and the choice matters more than it looks.
Carry it as a single item
One BOQ item for the trade, with the quoted total and unit item orsum. Simple, and correct when you will order and pay it as one lump.
Put the scope in Includes — the vanity, the mirror, the screen, and what is excluded. “Bathroom fitout — $8,500” tells nobody anything a month later.
Spread it across items
Where you want the detail — to compare against another job, or because you will order parts of it separately — allocate the lump across your items.
The trade-off is honesty about precision. Splitting a $17,000 roofing quote across six items means inventing six rates that add to $17,000, and none of them is what the subcontractor actually quoted.
Lump sum in, lump sum out. If you will order and pay it as one lump, carry it as one item. The detail you gain from splitting is invented, and it will be treated as real by whoever reads it next.
Where a rate can come from
Your own historical data, a supplier price list, or a quote a trade has just given you. All three are legitimate — but only one of them is a commitment from the person who will do the work.
A closer look at quotes
Recorded, priced in, and still traceable months later.
What it connects to
Nothing in SmarteBuild is an island — that is the point of it. Quotes Received reads from and feeds into these.
Tenders
Build a trade package, invite subbies, compare what comes back
Bill of Quantities
The costed spine of the job — items, rates, markups and margin
Suppliers
One supplier list across every job, with their products and rates
Purchase Orders
Raise orders straight from the BOQ and send them without re-keying
Want the detail?
The help centre documents Quotes Received step by step, with worked examples — written for people using it, not for a brochure.
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