AI estimating and price sources

AI estimating turns the material you already have into a draft estimate: the plans, the site photos, the spec sheets, the sub bids, your old estimates, your price lists and your typed notes. It works in steps, and it stops to ask you whenever something is missing or contradictory. Nothing reaches a customer until you send it, and nothing is final until you approve it.

Giving it the files

Open the project, choose Estimates, then choose New estimate. Add files with Choose files, and type your notes into the notes box. Up to 40 files can go into one estimate. A plan is read four pages at a time, and a photo is read in a smaller size.

The steps

1. Questions. Cedar lists up to eight things that are missing or do not add up. Answer each one, or choose Skip all. An answer you skip becomes a written assumption on the estimate.
2. Reading. Cedar reads every file and lists each quantity with the sheet, page or photo it came from, and how sure it is. If a piece of a file cannot be read, Cedar lists it by its pages and carries on.
3. Research. Before it prices anything, Cedar looks for material prices in the order you allow: your own history on past work, your price sheets and documents, your own websites, and your cost library. The open web is searched only for items your own data cannot price. A web price is used only when you allow it. Tick Also show store prices for comparison to see a web price beside the price the estimate uses. It is not used for the price. You can also type the material prices yourself.
4. Pricing. Each item is priced low, typical and high, with crew hours, materials and waste, and the quantity to buy. The cover letter, allowances, options, inclusions, exclusions, payment schedule and timeline are drafted too.
5. Ready. Choose Make the estimate to save the draft as a quote with every section filled in. Choose Make a schedule to create one task per trade in build order.

Each line says where its price came from, and the Sources and certainty window shows the rest. Change anything you disagree with, and Undo brings back the last change. To start over, choose Start again, or Make it again to rerun the steps on the same files.

Talking to the estimate

On the estimate page, the assistant changes the draft when you ask it to. It lists exactly what it changed, and the last change can be undone. Customers see the word "Estimate," not "AI estimate."

All estimates

All estimates lists every AI estimate with its status and who started it. From there you can set one aside, rename it, or delete it.

Price sources

Under Settings › Price sources, add the places your prices come from. There are three kinds.

• Website — a supplier site you trust. Cedar searches only inside the address you give it, such as one product category page.
• Price sheet — a CSV or Excel file of your prices. Cedar reads the rows that match each item and names the row it used.
• Document — typed text or a PDF. Cedar reads the passages that match and names them.

Mark each source with the trades it covers, and say what it is good for. Viewers can read the list; staff and above can add to it.

What the AI costs

AI use is paid from your Axion usage account, under Settings › Usage account. Each estimate has a How this was built card that shows the model, the tokens and the dollars drawn for that estimate. The card shows amounts only, never rates. Owners and admins choose the model and level for each step under Settings › AI.