How-To

Contractor Proposal Template: How to Use the One You Already Send

By Travis Evans, Founder of TradeGOAT · 20+ years in the trades

If you've been in business a while, you already have a contractor proposal template. It's the Word file or PDF you've been copying and editing for years: your scope language, your terms, your payment schedule, the way you lay it out. Your customers know it when they see it.

TradeGOAT starts from that document. You don't pick one of our layouts and retype your company into it. You upload your own contractor proposal template once, mark the parts that change from job to job, and every new proposal goes out on it.

Here's how, start to finish.

Step 1: Open the upload

1. Click Proposals in the left menu.
2. Click Import existing proposal. (You can also go to the Templates tab and choose Build from a document.)

The page reads Bring a proposal you've sent before. Pick a proposal you've actually sent a customer, not a blank form. A real one has all your wording in it.

Step 2: Upload your file

1. Drop the file on the page, or click Choose a file.
2. Under What should this template be called?, give it a name you'll recognize, like "Service repair" or "New install".
3. Answer Will proposals from this document need specific payment terms? If you always bill the same way, leave it on your company default. If this kind of job has its own draws, choose Yes — set the terms.
4. Click the Upload button.

What you upload decides what comes back. Upload a Word file and you get a Word file back, in your format. Upload a PDF and you get a PDF back.

Step 3: Mark the parts that change

The Template Builder opens with your document on the screen. Most of it stays exactly as you wrote it. A few pieces change on every job: the customer's name, the address, the scope, the price.

1. Select one of those pieces and click Make Variable.
2. If a paragraph belongs on some jobs and not others, mark it Only on some jobs.
3. Work down the page until every piece that changes is marked.
4. Click Save template.

That's your template. Everything you didn't mark stays in your words.

Step 4: Use it on the next job

When you start a new proposal, pick this template. TradeGOAT fills in the customer, the address, the scope and the price from the job you priced. You check it over and send it the way you always have.

If you have more than one kind of proposal, say a small repair and a big install, upload each one as its own template. You pick the right one when you start the job.

What you end up with

You end up with your own contractor proposal template, the one your customers already recognize, filled in for you on every job. You keep your wording and your terms, and nobody retypes the customer's name.

You can see it working in the demo at thetradegoat.com/demo.html. There's nothing to sign up for.