Glossary¶

Who this is for

Anyone who meets an unfamiliar term in Quote Builder.

Term	Meaning
Archive	Take a rate, item, machine or labour type out of use without deleting it. Archived ones aren't offered for new work, but quotes and rates that already use them are unaffected. You can restore them: tick Show archived to see them.
Assigned nursery	The nursery chosen for a plant on the Nursery list when Supply price is Each plant priced by its assigned nursery. The line uses that nursery's price, and that nursery is emailed the plant.
Audit log	The record of every change to quotes, the rate card, settings and the team, with who made it and when. Estimators and reviewers can read it.
Awaiting decision	A quote that has been sent to the client, who hasn't yet said yes or no. A quote gets this status when a version is marked as sent.
Band (size band)	A planting rate for one size of plant or tree, such as a container size. It covers the work of planting. The plant itself is priced from nursery quotes on each quote.
Bulking	How much a material grows in volume once it's dug out. Soil with 30% bulking takes up 1.3 m³ in the lorry for every 1 m³ dug.
Business details	Your business's name, logo, address, contact and registration details, and quote settings, under Setup. They appear on every client quote.
Category	A group on the rate card, such as "Groundworks". Items have their own categories, such as "Aggregates", and so do machines in the plant library. Categories help you find things. They don't change prices.
Client data	The page under Setup where an estimator downloads or erases what's held about a client on their quotes.
Client quote	The printable quote for the client. It shows sell prices only: no costs, margins or build-ups.
Component	One part of a rate: labour, plant, an item, a fixed price, a nursery-priced supply or another rate.
Cost heads	The three ways every cost is split: labour (L), plant (P) and material (M).
Cost viewer	Someone who can see costs and margins: estimators and reviewers always, and quoting users if the business allows it.
Custom line	A quote line that isn't on the rate card. You type its description, unit and price.
Default quote sections	The sections every new quote starts with, set in Factors & settings.
Defects allowance	A percentage added to planting lines to cover replacing plants that fail after planting.
Density	How many tonnes one cubic metre of a material weighs (t/m³). Used to turn the volume of spoil into tonnes.
Draft	A quote, or a version of one, that hasn't been sent yet. A draft can be changed. Its PDF says "Draft: not yet sent".
Element	A named piece of work inside a quote section, such as "Main terrace". It holds the priced lines.
Estimator (admin)	The role that manages the rate card, items, settings and team, and can do everything else too.
Gang × output per day	A way of entering labour: how many people work together (the gang or crew) and how many units they complete in a day.
Grab load	One lorry load of spoil taken away by a grab lorry. Muck-away is priced per load, and part loads are rounded up to whole loads across the whole quote.
Item category	A group in the items library, such as "Aggregates" or "Paving".
Labour charge-out rate	What the business charges itself for an hour (or a day) of one person's work. Each labour type has its own.
Labour plan	The man-hours a quote carries, by section and by labour type, and a rough idea of how many days a crew needs on site.
Labour type	A kind of worker, such as paver, groundworker or labourer, with its own charge-out rate. Each labour line in a rate picks one.
Load size	How much a machine priced by the load carries: Tonnes a load for a grab lorry, or m³ a load for a skip. The muck-away line uses it to count loads.
Machine	One entry in the plant library, with its price by the day, the load or the visit.
Man-day, man-hour, man-minute	One person working for a day, an hour or a minute. A crew of 3 working for 2 days is 6 man-days.
Margin	Profit as a share of the sale price. Not the same as markup. A 30% markup is a 23.1% margin.
Mark as sent	Lock a quote version as the one the client received. Its status becomes Awaiting decision and nobody can change it.
Markup	The percentage added to cost to give the sell price. £100 of cost with 30% markup sells at £130.
MCD (main-contractor discount)	A discount a main contractor takes from your price. The app adds it to your prices so that after the discount you still get your full price.
Muck-away	Removing dug-out soil, rubble or other spoil from site. A quote's muck-away line adds up the spoil of all its lines and works out the loads of the grab lorry or skip.
Nurseries	Your business's list of nurseries, with their email addresses, to pick from on a quote.
Nursery list	The page in a quote that gathers every plant and tree, where you enter nurseries' prices and choose which price to use.
On every new quote	The part of a rate where an estimator ticks Add to every new quote, so new quotes start with it under a default section, at a set quantity.
Output per day	How many units a crew, or a machine hired by the day, does in a day. Used to work out labour and plant cost per unit.
Override	Typing your own sell rate for a line in place of the one the app worked out.
Pass-through	A supplier's or subcontractor's price passed straight to the client with no markup, using a custom line priced as sell rate as typed.
Plant	Machinery, such as an excavator, a dumper, a grab lorry or a skip, from the plant library. Priced by the day, the load or the visit. Not to be confused with plants for planting.
Plant library	The machines a business hires or owns, each priced by the day (with a week rate if there is one), the load or the visit, for plant lines in rates to pick.
Platform admin	Someone who looks after Quote Builder as a whole: creates businesses, and acts as an estimator in any business.
Prelims (preliminaries)	An allowance for the costs of setting up and running the site, such as welfare, access and supervision. Added as a percentage of cost to each line in sections that have prelims turned on.
Price list	What quoting users who can't see costs see in place of the rate card: sell prices only.
Price used	The nursery price a planting line ends up with on the Nursery list, under the Supply price rule. "awaiting" if there isn't one yet.
Pricing link	A link that lets a nursery type its prices straight into a draft quote's Nursery list, without an account. It works for 14 days, until the version is sent, or until it's closed or replaced.
Prime cost	The total cost of a quote before markup, prelims or discount.
Provisional (total)	A quote total that isn't final because some planting is still waiting for a nursery price. The step list says "Provisional until the nursery list is priced", and the quotes list says "Awaiting nursery prices" under the value.
Provisional sum	An allowance for work that can't be priced exactly yet, such as lighting to be chosen later. Tagged "provisional" on the quote and "(Provisional sum)" on the client quote.
Quote reference	A quote's unique reference: the business's prefix followed by a four-digit number, for example BEE0042.
Quote required	A machine in the plant library with no price yet. It can't be used in a rate until it has one.
Quoting user	The role that builds quotes but can't change the rate card or settings.
Rate	One kind of work on the rate card, priced per unit, such as "Lay porcelain paving" per m².
Rate card	The business's full list of rates, with how each one is built up and costed.
Rate only	A quote line that shows the client a rate without adding it to the total. Useful for pricing possible extra work.
Reviewer	The role that reads quotes and workings to check them, but can't change anything.
Rolled-up cost	A rate's total cost per unit, adding up all its components.
Scheduled change	A price or rate change set to take effect from a date. Listed under Upcoming changes.
Scope of work	The list of a quote's sections shown to the client when Show the client is Total only.
Section	A main part of a quote, such as "Hard landscaping". Sections can have prelims turned on or off.
Sell rate	The price per unit the client pays, before VAT.
Show the client	The choice on the client quote of how much the client sees: Every line, Section totals or Total only. Saved with the quote.
Snapshot ("Priced on rates as at")	The copy of the rate card a quote version was priced on. It doesn't change when the rate card does, unless a draft is updated to today's rates.
Spoil	What a rate digs out, in m³ in the ground per unit, and its material. It's priced on the quote's muck-away line, not on the rate.
Supply price	The rule a quote uses to pick each plant's nursery price: its assigned nursery, or the cheapest, median or average of the prices given.
Upcoming changes	Price changes scheduled to take effect from a future date.
Valid until	The date on the client quote until which its prices stand: the quote's date plus Quotes valid for (days) from Business details.
VAT	Prices in the app are excluding VAT. A business with a VAT number in Business details gets VAT at 20% added on its client quotes.
Version	One edition of a quote. Once sent, a version is locked. Changes go in a new version.
Wastage	An allowance for material that's cut, broken or spilt, added as a percentage to the quantity used.
Week hire	Hiring a machine for a week at its Per week rate. In a rate, a week's hire is costed over 5 working days.
Workings	The internal page showing how every line of a quote version was priced. Not for clients.