Quote template
A free quote template with the wording that protects you
A quote is an offer. The day the customer says yes it becomes a contract, and what the document said is what you are held to. Answer four questions and this one comes out with the right wording on it, as a Word document you fill in.
A quote is a fixed price you are held to. An estimate can move, but only if the document says so.
Agreed at theirs, and they get 14 days to cancel — which you have to tell them about in writing.
VAT goes on its own line, so nobody argues later about whether it was in the number.
Materials move. A price with no end date is one you are still held to next spring.
Quote or estimate — the word matters
A quote is a fixed price. Once the customer accepts it, that is the price, and if the job takes three days instead of two, the extra day is yours. An estimate is a considered guess that can move as the work reveals itself.
Most disputes about money on small jobs start here, and they start because the document never said which one it was. If the price could move, the word “estimate” has to be on the page and the document has to say the final cost may differ. A number sent in a text message with neither word on it will be remembered as a quote.
If you priced it in their house, they get 14 days to cancel
This is the one traders miss, and it is expensive. Work agreed somewhere other than your own premises — which for most trades means the customer's kitchen — is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. The customer has 14 days from accepting to cancel, without giving a reason, and you have to tell them so in writing.
Skip that notice and the 14 days do not quietly lapse. Under regulation 31, the cancellation period instead ends 12 months after it otherwise would have — so a customer can cancel the better part of a year later, on a job you finished and were paid for.
And if you start before the 14 days are up
Customers rarely want to wait a fortnight, which is fine — but you need their express request, in writing, before you start. Regulation 36 is blunt about what happens without it: the consumer “bears no cost for supply of the service, in full or in part”. Start on the Monday on a handshake, have them cancel on the Wednesday, and you cannot charge for the two days.
It is one line on the quote and a signature. Tell the form you agreed the work at the customer's place and the template comes with both the cancellation notice and that line already on it.
Where this doesn't apply
The regulations leave out off-premises jobs of £42 or less, and they do not cover building a new house or a substantial conversion. They also only apply to consumers — quoting another business is a different footing, and if that business withholds CIS from your labour, the CIS deduction calculator shows what will actually reach your bank.
Then the quote has to turn into an invoice
The numbers you agreed here are the numbers that go on the bill, and re-typing them is where they change by accident. The invoice template is the other half of the pair, and the job profit calculator will tell you afterwards whether the price you held was the right one.
Word is fine for a handful of jobs a month. Past that, the version you sent, the version they signed and the invoice that should match both are three documents living in three places — which is what grafter.ly is for.
Send the next one and know where it stands.
Set it up yourself in minutes. No sales call, no card, no drip emails.
30 days free, then £25 a month. No card details to start.