Skip to content

AI quoting guide

1. What AI quoting does

When you quote a service, you normally estimate cleaning time per task yourself. AI quoting does this for you — it looks at the photos of each area, the tasks listed for each area, and industry cleaning time benchmarks (ISSA 612) to produce a per-task minute estimate.

The result is a price per visit and an annual (or total) value, the same as a manual quote. You can adjust the estimate up or down with the Increase/Reduce control, and you can regenerate at any time if the inputs change.

Not applicable to C6 hygiene services. AI quoting prices cleaner time per area; C6 hygiene services don't have a cleaner-time component (they're priced per replenishment, from product unit price × quantity × frequency). The Quote by dropdown on a C6 service is hidden — the value is auto-set to "replenishment" and you can't switch it to AI. See Quoting C6 hygiene services.

2. Setting up a service for AI quoting

Before you can generate an AI estimate, the service needs:

  1. A site with areas. Each area should have photos — the AI uses photos to judge the size and condition of the space. Areas without photos will still get an estimate, but it will be lower confidence.
  2. At least one shift with day of week and time of day set.
  3. Areas on each shift. Use the Add Area button on the shift page to add areas from the site.
  4. Tasks on every area on every shift. The AI uses your task list as the scope — it does not invent tasks. Every area must have at least one task before Generate is enabled. If you're not sure what tasks the cleaner will do yet, add the standard task list for that area type and refine it later.
  5. Quote by set to "AI". On the service edit page, set the Quote by dropdown to "AI". You can do this before or after generating — the system doesn't delete anything when you switch modes.

3. Generating an AI estimate

On the service edit page, in the Pricing section:

  1. If no estimate has been generated yet, you'll see a card with a Generate button (sparkles icon). Click it.
  2. The pricing card is replaced by a "Generating estimates…" tile with an animated bar and an elapsed-time counter. A Cancel button sits in the tile's title bar — see Section 7 for what cancel does.
  3. While the job runs, the same tile is shown on the related shift edit pages and on the parent opportunity's pricing summary, so anyone looking at those pages sees that an AI quote is in flight.
  4. When finished, a toast message confirms how many areas were estimated (e.g. "AI quote complete — 13 of 13 areas estimated"). The pricing card returns with the new numbers.

If multiple shifts visit the same physical area, the AI estimates that area once and applies the result to every shift that visits it — so on a 5-shift service that all clean the same 13 site areas, the tile counts up to 13, not 65.

If the Generate button is greyed out, hover over it to see why. Common reasons:

  • "No shifts configured" — add at least one shift.
  • "Set day on all shifts" — every shift needs a day of the week.
  • "Set time of day on all shifts" — every shift needs a time of day.
  • "Add areas to all shifts" — every shift needs at least one area.
  • "Add tasks to all areas" — every area on every shift needs at least one task.

4. Reading the results

After generating, the Pricing section shows:

  • Shifts per year (or "Number of shifts" for one-off services)
  • Hourly rate (from the rate table, based on service type and timing)
  • Price per visit (ex GST)
  • Annual value (ex GST) (or "Total value" for one-off services)

Below the pricing card, a summary shows:

  • Last generated — when the estimate was created.
  • Areas estimated — e.g. "17 of 17 areas estimated". If some areas weren't estimated, they're listed by name.
  • Low-confidence areas — areas where the AI wasn't confident in its estimate. Hover the info icon for advice (usually: add photos and regenerate).
  • Missing photos — areas with no photos, listed by name.
  • Poor photos — areas where the photos were blurry, partial, or otherwise insufficient.

5. Adjusting the estimate

If you think the AI's estimate is too high or too low, use the adjustment controls below the pricing card:

  • Reduce — enters a percentage to reduce the price. For example, entering 10 reduces the price by 10%.
  • Increase — enters a percentage to increase the price.

Use the dropdown to switch between Reduce and Increase. The adjustment is applied to both the per-visit and annual values.

The adjustment is cleared the moment you click Generate or Regenerate, because the base price is about to change.

6. Regenerating

Click the refresh icon (top-right of the pricing card) to regenerate estimates. You'd do this after:

  • Adding or improving photos on site areas.
  • Adding or removing areas on shifts.
  • Adding or editing tasks on areas (the AI will use the updated task list as its scope).
  • Changing the service type or frequency.

Regenerating replaces all AI estimates for the service. Any adjustment percentage you had is cleared to 0.

The AI uses your task list as the scope — it keeps the exact task descriptions and only updates the time per task.

7. Cancelling a generation in progress

The progress tile has a Cancel button in its title bar. Clicking it requests cancellation; the AI typically stops within a couple of seconds.

What happens next depends on whether you had a previous AI quote:

  • Cancelling a fresh generation (no previous quote) — the service is left without estimates, the same as if you'd never clicked Generate. You can click Generate again to start over.
  • Cancelling a regenerate (where a previous quote existed) — the previous quote is restored, including any tasks the AI had created on the previous run. Your service ends up exactly as it was before you clicked Regenerate, except that any adjustment percentage you had is now 0 (because clicking Generate or Regenerate clears it).

In either case, the progress tile briefly shows "Reverting quote…" while the previous state is being restored.

8. When areas have no photos

The AI will still estimate areas without photos, based on the area type alone (e.g. a "Kitchen" area type gets a typical kitchen estimate). But the estimate will be marked as low confidence and the area will appear in the "missing photos" list.

For a better estimate:

  1. Go to the site and take photos of the area.
  2. Upload them on the site area page in the BMS.
  3. Come back to the service and click Regenerate.

9. Tips for better estimates

  • More photos = better estimates. Up to 15 photos per area are sent to the AI. Photos that show the full area (floor, surfaces, fixtures) are more useful than close-ups of one corner.
  • Get the task list right before generating. The AI assigns time to your task list — it does not add or remove tasks. If a task is missing, the AI can't allocate time to it; if a task is wrong, the AI will allocate time to the wrong thing.
  • Check low-confidence areas. These are the ones most likely to need manual adjustment. The AI flags them honestly — if it's not confident, it says so.
  • Use Increase/Reduce for calibration. If you find the AI consistently estimates high or low for a particular service type, use the percentage adjustment rather than manually editing every area.