Understanding Estimates and Public Proposals

An Estimate is an internal working record that ties together a Customer, a Property, and one or more Price Book items. Once an estimate is ready for customer review, OperelliOS can generate a Public Proposal — a separate, governed customer-facing page that shows the same scope and pricing without giving the customer access to your workspace.

All totals shown to the operator and the customer are calculated by the server from Price Book prices and your workspace tax settings. The browser only ever displays a non-binding preview before you save.

Who this is for: Owners or staff who create estimates and share proposals with customers.

Before you begin

A workspace with at least one Customer, one Property, and one active Price Book item.
Permission to view Estimates in your workspace.

Steps

A Customer and Property define who an estimate is for and where the work happens. An estimate cannot be created without selecting both.
Price Book items are added to the estimate as line items. Each line item’s price and cost come directly from the Price Book record you selected, not from free text.
While you are editing an estimate, the app shows a client-side catalog hint (list price × quantity) so you can see roughly what a line will cost. The app is explicit that this is a hint only.

The catalog hint shown while editing is labeled as a preview, not the official total.
Saving the draft sends the line items to the server, which recalculates the subtotal, sales tax, and grand total from your Price Book and Settings — server-calculated totals.

Once saved, the estimate shows server-calculated totals rather than a client-side preview.
When an estimate is ready, it can be shared as a Public Proposal — a governed link a customer can open without signing in, where they can review the quote and Accept or Decline it.

Expected result

You understand that Customer, Property, Price Book items, the internal Estimate, and the customer-facing Public Proposal are connected records, and that every displayed total is produced by deterministic server-side calculation rather than by any AI system.

Warnings and notes

AI-assisted drafting features, if enabled, may help prepare wording or suggest line items, but they do not calculate, approve, or own financial totals — those figures always come from deterministic product logic.
Price Book data provides governed inputs. Deterministic OperelliOS logic computes official estimate totals. A preview or catalog hint is not financial truth. AI does not own prices, taxes, margins, or totals.
This article does not cover Invoices, Payments, or Work Order execution.