Create a Service Estimate | Maintenance

 In this article:

Before Creating a Service Estimate

Create a New Service Estimate (Maintenance)

     From the CRM Contact

     From the Standard Estimate List

Build a Service Estimate

     Lock & Unlock Estimates

Add Discounts to Service Estimates

Service Estimates: Contracts & Pricing

Before Creating a Service Estimate

💡 It's important to understand why LMN suggests using Service estimates for any repeatable or recurring work that you may offer your clients.

LMN suggests using Service estimates for the following reasons:

When building your first Service estimate, you can create a new estimate in two different ways:
(A) From the CRM Contact
(B) From the Service Estimate List

Create a New Service Estimate (Maintenance)

(A) Create a Service Estimate from a CRM Contact

1. Navigate to CRM
2. Open a Contact from the list
3. From the CRM Contact info page, click the Estimates tab.
4. Click the + New Service Estimate button to create a New Service Estimate for this Contact.

(B) Create an Estimate from the Service Estimates List

1. Navigate to Estimates > Service
2. In the top right corner of the screen, click the +New button:
3. On the New Service Estimate page, use the Lead/Customer lookup tool to find the contact you wish to create the estimate for
4. Once you've found the correct customer, click the Select button to verify the customer
5. Next, in the Estimate Information field, choose the Division, Salesperson, and Estimator. Confirm the Project Name for this estimate and ensure the correct Jobsite is also chosen. When finished, click OK.
6. Now, you're ready to start building your new Service Estimate and customer proposal.

Build a Service Estimate

This section will walk you through the basics of getting started building a Service Estimate for maintenance work. Service Estimates will allow you to create a proposal for your customer and also allow you to provide a quote for multiple services that you offer.

⚠️ To begin with Service Estimates, you will need to ensure that you have first setup your list of Services in Job settings

1. With your new Service Estimate Open (from previous steps above), you'll start building your estimate from the Services + Pricing tab.
2. Add a Service to your estimate by clicking the + Add Service button:
3. In the Add Service window, select the Service Type from the dropdown list, the Service (task) Name, the Billing Type (Per Visit, Per Season, Per Hour/Unit), the Number of Visits, and the Cost Code. Once you've made your selections, click OK.
4. Once the service has been added to the estimate, you'll need to start adding your labor, equipment, and any materials from the LMN Item Catalog to price out the work. To do this, click the + Add Items & Templates button.
5. This will open the LMN Price List and allow you to enter labor items, equipment to be used, and any billable materials you will be quoting for the work.
6. Using the " + " buttons beside the items, these will get pulled from the LMN Item Catalog and added as a line item in your estimate:
7. Once all your billable items are added, click the green Save button, or the small red "X" to close the item catalog:
8. With the service added, you can see the Service Name (Task), the Cost Code, the Service Type, the Billing Type, Number of Visits, Cost Per Visit, Breakeven Per Visit, Price Per Visit and Profit Margin. You can also click 'Edit Notes' or 'Edit Taxes' to see taxes by line item:

9. One key point to always remember as you're working is to save your work, click Save Changes.

   Looking for more advanced Estimating training? Don't forget to check out the LMN Academy in the 'Help & Resources' section of your account, or join one of our upcoming Community webinar events!

   Lock & Unlock Estimates 

   Once your estimate is completed, or while you are building the estimate, it's also possible to lock your estimate so that you avoid any potential edits or changes being made to the estimate. Simply click on the drop down arrow underneath the project name in the top left corner and then click on Lock this estimate ( ⚠️ This requires requisite permissions) to lock the estimate from being adjusted by anyone. 
   

   If you need to unlock the estimate, navigate back into the estimate, click the LOCKED dropdown arrow under the project name, and from the dropdown menu click Unlock to allow editing.

Add Discounts to Service Estimates

Add discounts to Service estimates to ensure accurate pricing is both quoted to a customer, and applied to contracts.

⚠️ Before adding a discount, you will first need to add in Discount as a line item within your "Other Catalog". 

1. Navigate to Price List > Other
2. From the list, click on Discount
3. You will only add in the Description of the Item, and ensure there is no tax and profit override of this line item when added into an estimate.
4. Click Save

1. Find your estimate after adding discount line item. Navigate to   Estimates > Service
2. Select the proposal you'd like to discount from the list
3. Click the Services + Pricing tab
4. Click Edit next to the Item you would like to discount
5. Click Add Items + Templates
6. Open the Other tab
7. Click the "+" button next to the Discount Item you created
8. Now you can enter the discounted price with a negative (-) in front of the amount. This line item will impact the Total Price being charged Per Season Total for Service Estimates.
9. Click Save Changes in the top right

Service Estimates: Contracts & Payments

You have 2 options when creating Contracts in LMN:

• Option 1: Create Contract in LMN estimating and Import into a Job
• Option 2: IF job is already in your Job list, you don't need to add your contract back in the Estimate. You can create a Contract manually right in the job itself. 

*This article will walk though Option 1: 

Billing Types

Navigate to Estimates > Service > select estimate > Services + Pricing tab 

Contracts will apply to your Billing Type: Per Season services. Your estimate's Per Season Total will be displayed on your Services + Pricing tab.

Once your Billing Types are indicated for each service in your estimate, you can follow the steps below to create a Contract.

Create a Contract

1. Click the Billing Setup tab for the estimate you wish to update.
2. Click the Create a Contract for this Estimate button
3. Enter the information in the fields provided as described below:

Contract Start/End Dates	These dates will be populated based on the Contract Start and End dates indicated on your Customer Info tab of your estimate.
PO Number/Contract Number	These fields are optional and can be added in if you use them currently for your business.
Per Season Total	This number is driven from the Services + Pricing tab and is determined by your Billing Type selected for each service in your estimate.
# of Pmts	This number is also driven from the Services + Pricing tab and indicates how you want the Per Season Total divided.
Est. Monthly Payment	This number is determined by your Per Season Total divided by your # of Pmts.
Day of Month	The day of the month you want to bill your customer.  Please note: if you pick the 31st, it will roll back for months where there are not 31 days (ie. in February, the Invoice would generate on the 28th).
Invoice Text	Any text entered here will display on your customer's Invoices.
Invoice Extras	You can determine if you would like Extras to be added to either the Monthly Billing, or if you would prefer that Extras are billed out separately (ie. Monthly Billing is generated on the 1st of each month, Extras are generated on the 15th of each month). Extras would be considered as any Per Visit or Per Hour/Unit billing as well as any billing for Materials/Activities specifically.
Tax	Tax is included in the estimate itself for anything that was entered under Services + Pricing.  The Tax field indicated on the Billing Setup tab will allow you to determine what Tax you want added to your Activities.
Cost Code	If you choose to calculate your Contract payments using the Recalc Payments (simple) button you will need to indicate which Cost Code you want to use.  If you use the Recalc Payments (by Cost Code) button, your payments will be divided proportionally based on the Cost Codes indicated in your estimate.
Disable Warnings?	Only select this checkbox if you want to hide Payment Warnings for your contract.  A Payment Warning will display if your total payments in the contract is not equal to the Estimate Total as per the Services + Pricing tab (see below).

Once you've updated all fields indicated above, your next step is to determine whether you want to calculate all payments using one Cost Code, or if you want to calculate payments proportionally based on the Cost Codes indicated in your estimate.

Recalc Payments (simple)	This will allocate all Per Season payments to one Cost Code - as indicated in the Cost Code drop down above.
Recalc Payments (by Cost Code)	This will divide all Per Season payments proportionally based on the Cost Codes indicated in your estimate.

Add a Payment to your contract, use the "+" button on the right. Pick the date for your payment (which will then be sorted in the correct order - by date) and add your Amount and Cost Code.

3. Once your Contract is set up the way you'd like, click Save.  

Now you're all set to move this estimate and contract over to Jobs for Time Tracking and Invoicing purposes!

🎥 Video: Service Estimate: Contracts & Payments

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