How to Add Upgrades to Proposals

What it does: Offer premium materials or optional extras to your proposal.

Purpose: To create additional revenue opportunities for you, without compromising your customer experience.

Pre-Requisites: Upgrades must be associated to an existing estimate option in your proposal.

Available on: Premium & Elite

About Upgrades

Upgrades add potential revenue opportunities, while giving homeowners the flexibility to choose what’s right for them.‍

💡Important note about upgrades:

Upgrades are optional add-ons. This means that if you’re offering an upgraded version of an item in your base proposal, your upgrade should reflect the additional cost of the upgraded item. When creating the line item for the upgrade, the price should be the difference in price between the upgraded option and the base option.

Example:

Your base underlayment is $130. Your upgraded underlayment costs $180. You would add the unit price for your upgraded line item as $50.

Adding an Upgrade to a New Proposal (without a template).

Add an upgrade to your estimate option

Tool Tip: Estimate options are like individual sections on your proposal. They can be used for good, better, best pricing, or to add additional services.

Note: Estimate options act individually in the proposal, so upgrades must be applied to each option.

Step 1: In your proposal, select your estimate “option” you want to apply the upgrade to. (If you haven’t gotten that far yet - learn how to create a proposal here). Click “Edit Option”.

Step 2: Under the estimate details choose “Add Upgrade”. This will create a new section in your estimate option. Select the edit icon and create a name for your upgrade section.

Note: The upgrade section works like estimate sections. You can create section headers and add multiple line items.

Step 3: Now, add a new line item for your upgrade with a description and price.

Note: Remember, if you’re adding an upgraded material or service, the price for upgrade is the DIFFERENCE between the original and the upgraded version.

Step 4: Add another upgrade! You can add multiple upgrades to each estimate option, and the homeowner will be able to select as many as they would like.

View your estimated totals

In your estimate option editor, you’ll see your estimated totals with and without the upgrades applied, so you can see the breakdown of potential revenue. Here, you can adjust the profitability which will be applied to the estimate option and the upgrades.

Add optional upgrades to each estimate option in your proposal.

For multi-option proposals, you can add upgrades to each estimate option in your proposal. Simply return to your proposal and repeat the process for each estimate option.

For example:

• If you’re offering Good, Better, Best pricing options, you can add your warranty upgrade to each option.

Preview your Proposal with Upgrades

Once you’ve added all your upgrade options, scroll to the summary page of your proposal. You’ll see each estimate option on your proposal, along with the associated upgrades. The proposals are dynamic, so the price will automatically adjust with each selected option. Note: homeowners can’t select an upgrade without first selecting an estimate option.

Adding Upgrades to a Proposal Template

For upgrades you always want to offer, you can add upgrades to your proposal templates.

The steps for adding upgrades to your templates are the same as above, the only difference is starting with a template rather than a new proposal. Read more about creating Proposal Templates HERE.

Step 1: In the template tab of the proposals tool, create a new template, and add your estimate options.

Step 2: Select each estimate option and again, create and name your upgrade section. Add the line items for each upgrade and save.

Step 3: Repeat this for each estimate option, adjust your profitability, and save your template.

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FAQs

What type of upgrades can I add?

Upgrades are flexible, and we see them used for multiple purposes. Some common use cases are:

• Warranties (1, 3, 5, 10-year warranty options)
• Upgraded materials (ie: premium underlayment)
• Additional Services (gutters, windows, siding)
• Note: Additional trades can also be added as multi-select proposals.

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Can I add upgrades to my catalog?

Yes! When you add upgraded material options to the catalog make sure they are clearly labelled as “upgrade” to make it easy to add them as line items in your proposal.

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When should I use upgrades vs multi-select options?

There is no hard fast rule when it comes to which feature to use, but the general idea is when you want an upgrade to only apply to a specific estimate option you should use upgrades. In this case, homeowners must choose an option before they choose an upgrade.

Example: If you are writing a proposal for a roofing project and you offer gutters as an add-on service, but not a standalone service, you can create a good, better, best estimate with gutters offered as an upgrade to each option. The customer must choose which roofing option they would like before they can also select gutters.

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However, if you want to be able to select an additional option regardless of what else is selected, then you should use multi-select.

Example: If you are writing a proposal for a multi-trade project and you create a good, better, best estimate for the roofing and create a fourth estimate option for gutters. If there is a chance your customer might elect to do their gutters without replacing their roof, then this would be the better option for you.

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Can line items in my upgrade replace the line item in the estimate option?

No, when an upgrade item is selected, it will not replace the original line item. This is why upgrades should be added as their own clearly labelled line item, showing the difference in price between the base price and the upgraded price.

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