Templates for Contractors & the Trades.

Estimating, pricing and paperwork tools for contractors, remodelers and tradespeople — the number, then the paper that holds it. Run takeoff, loaded labor, markup and overhead from one connected file, then hand the customer a scope, a payment schedule and a change order that says what the job now costs.

Quote a margin you can defend

Underpricing and change orders priced as favors are two common ways the trades lose money on a job. Both come down to numbers scattered across scratch sheets — a takeoff here, a markup guessed there, a "while we're here" favor that never made it onto the invoice. The tools here keep the estimate, the markup, the overhead and what a change order costs you in one place, so the price you quote actually covers the work.

New to the markup-vs-margin math? Start free with the bid-markup & job-cost calculator — no signup — then read what bid markup is and how it differs from margin.

Working a real bid? Follow a step-by-step tutorial for a remodeling bid or a landscaping estimate, or weigh a spreadsheet vs job-costing software for the stage you're at.

The paper that holds the price

A defensible number is only half of it. The other half is the paperwork between you and the customer — the scope with real exclusions on it, the payment schedule tied to milestones, the change order that shows what the job now costs, and the punch list that actually closes. That is what the Trades Client Paperwork & Change-Order Template Pack is: sixteen white-label documents sequenced to a job's timeline, as fillable PDFs and editable Word files.

Try the pack's change order form first — it's free, ungated, and unlike most free downloads it carries the running contract amount.

And the crew half. The weekly safety talk is the obligation nobody argues with and almost nobody keeps up, because somebody has to write it every week. The Weekly Toolbox-Talk & Safety-Meeting Script Library is a year of them already written — 52 one-page talks with the sign-in slip on the same sheet, and six computed 52-week rotations so the order is decided before Monday. The Safety-Training & Toolbox-Talk Compliance Tracker is the workbook that keeps the record they create. When something does happen, the Workplace Incident, Near-Miss & Injury Log Workbook logs it — near misses included — assigns a fix with a due date, and calculates your TRIR and DART rates from the hours you log each month — or try the free TRIR calculator on a year you already have. Four of the talks are free and ungated — run one on Monday and see whether the crew talks.

And the trucks and machines. The daily walk-around is routine enough that it stops feeling like paperwork, and the defect on it is the part that gets lost. The Vehicle & Equipment Pre-Use Inspection Log keeps trucks, trailers, forklifts, lifts and mowers in one register, shows which scheduled inspections were missed, and holds a unit out of service until its critical defect is repaired and signed off. Start with the free daily vehicle inspection checklist — one printable page for one pickup or van, with no register behind it — or read what a DVIR is and who has to keep one.

Or the whole training record at once. The Crew Safety & Training-Compliance Kit carries both the talk library and the compliance tracker, plus the apprentice logbook and the skills matrix, and adds the workbook that joins them. It answers whether a given person is cleared to run a given station today, reading their skill level, their certification, their toolbox-talk attendance and — for apprentices — their logged hours. That join is free to try on ten rows as the Assignment Gate Starter.

And before you put anyone on the job. Subs, a key hire, or the specialist trade you have not worked with before — the Reference & Vetting Tracker puts the same six questions to every reference so three calls can actually be compared, and measures each license and certificate against the day your job finishes rather than the day you looked. Read what to ask a contractor's references, or take the free 24 reference-check questions — no signup.

And when you are the one taking bids. Three sub quotes for the same package may not be three prices for the same work — one can leave temporary power and site protection out, one can set its allowance under the spec, one can price a line you assumed was another trade's. The Contractor-Choice Decision Helper runs up to five sub bids through one scope of 46 lines before it ranks anything, then scores nine weighted criteria — you rate eight by hand, and the cost row is calculated from that leveled total instead of the headline price. Read it from both sides of the table: it is built for the person choosing a contractor, so it also shows how a buyer running this method would read your bid. The free contractor bid comparison worksheet takes two bids through 16 of those scope lines and stops before the scoring — no signup.

For the background, read what a change order is or what a materials allowance covers — two of the details that quietly decide whether a remodel makes money. Then follow writing a change order end to end, or compare paperwork templates vs a contractor app.