Photograph the job. Get the order list.

It reads plans, sketches and site photos, works the quantities against UK building regs, then prices every line at the merchant.

Start a list See one it made
Job
48 Wellington Road
Scope
Rear extension, garage, stair alteration
Input
Six photographs, one written brief
Output
48 lines, 10% waste on every figure

Extract from that list

Guest prices, ex VAT
Extension wall studs38x140mm C24 CLS at 400mm centres
220 m
£1,191.36
Flat roof joists47x200mm C24 at 400mm centres, 4.2m lengths
105 m
£869.12
Extension wall insulation100mm PIR rigid board, 29 sheets
75 m²
£3,212.91
Extension slab insulation150mm PIR rigid board, 27 sheets
68.5 m²
£4,444.20
Extension damp proof membrane1200 gauge polythene, one roll covers it
75 m²
£64.01
Framing nails3.1x90mm galvanised ring shank
4 boxes
£264.95
Extension bifold doorsNot sold online by the merchant
1 nr
No estimate
Staircase alterationRemove existing spindles, make good
1 nr
Labour
Materials total
34 of 48 lines priced
£16,927.72

Fourteen lines came back without a price. They are marked and left out of the total.

What it does with a photograph

Reads

Architect drawings, a pencil sketch on the back of an envelope, or the room as it stands. Add a note if it helps, something like garage, flat roof, 7.4 by 3 metres.

Measures

Timber sized against span tables, insulation against Part L, footings against Approved Document A. The arithmetic sits under every line so you can check it, and anything it had to assume is written down rather than buried.

Prices

Each line is matched against the merchant catalogue, and pack sizes are converted properly. Eighty eight square metres of membrane is two rolls at £220, not eighty eight rolls at £9,692. Getting that wrong is how most estimates end up fiction.

It tells you what it does not know

Bifold doors, windows, ready mix concrete. Plenty of a real job is not in a merchant catalogue, and inventing a number for it would make the total worse, not better.

Labour is kept out of the materials bill. Anything that reads remove, strip out or make good is set aside unless you decide to put a figure on it.

Tap any line to enter your own price. Yours wins, it survives the next recalculation, and you can undo it.

Extension windowsWaiting on your price
4 nr
No estimate
Extension windowsYour price, from the branch
4 nr
£2,400.00

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