Turning an Assessment into an Estimate

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Once an assessment is complete, you can generate a draft estimate from it. The technician's findings and recommended work carry over as text for the customer, and only the assessment fee is added as a line. You then price the actual work on the estimate. The fee can be credited back so the customer is not charged twice.

Before you start

You need both permission to record assessment outcomes and permission to create estimates. Without both, the page says so instead of showing the form.
The assessment must be completed, have at least one finding, and not have produced an estimate already.
If the assessment was cancelled, no estimate can be generated from it.

Steps

Open the completed assessment and find Estimate Generation.
Set Valid Until with the date picker.
Review Sales tax. It is calculated from the service address and your tax jurisdictions when the estimate is generated. Manage tax jurisdictions opens that setup.
Optionally edit Customer Notes Override and Internal Notes Override.
If the assessment has a fee, answer Credit the assessment fee if the customer accepts this estimate. It starts ticked or unticked from your company setting Credit Assessment Fees by Default, and you can change it for this estimate. The fee is always added to the estimate as a line. If the assessment has no fee, this question does not appear.
Select Generate Draft Estimate. You are taken to the new estimate to price the work.

If an estimate already exists, the section says This assessment already generated an estimate with an Open estimate link. If the outcome has not been recorded, it says to record the outcome first.

What carries over

The findings and recommended work appear in the estimate's customer-facing Diagnosis & Recommended Work section. They are not line items, and the assessment's pricing is not copied.

Absorbing the assessment fee

When the customer accepts the estimate, the fee can be credited back as a negative line, so the customer pays for the work rather than for the visit and the work. Your answer to Credit the assessment fee if the customer accepts this estimate decides, and it is saved on the estimate:

If you chose to credit it, the fee is credited when the customer accepts, however they accept: through their portal, a guest link, or with you recording it. The estimate shows Assessment Fee Absorption and the total with the credit.
If you did not, the fee is charged on the estimate and not credited. The estimate says so.

The company setting Credit Assessment Fees by Default only sets the starting answer. An estimate created any other way, for example from a booked job, charges the fee and does not credit it. To credit the customer later, reverse the fee line on the estimate.

Absorption is a permission of its own, and it is refused for an estimate that has already been converted. The estimate page also lets you waive the fee line on a draft estimate if you have permission.

Tips

If you invoiced the assessment fee separately and then also keep the fee line, the customer is billed for it twice. Pick one route.
For sending, approval and conversion to work orders, see the linked estimate guides.

If something goes wrong

If Generate Draft Estimate reports it could not generate yet, confirm the assessment is completed and has findings and recommended work.
If the fee did not credit, open the estimate: the Assessment Fee Absorption panel says whether it was set to be credited. Check that the estimate is linked to this assessment.

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