We run a two-van plumbing outfit. Every job we quote gets typed out fresh in WhatsApp and it takes me an hour a night. Build me a set of six quote templates covering our usual jobs — boiler service, leak callout, bathroom refit, radiator swap, blocked drain, emergency callout — each with the bits I always forget to mention. Something I can copy-paste and edit on my phone.
Six jobs were named. Six templates came back, in the order they were asked for, plus a seventh section nobody requested.
"Each with the bits I always forget to mention" is the whole job, and it does not say what those bits are. Anyone can produce six headed templates. Knowing what a plumber forgets is the part that requires having thought about the trade.
What came back puts a **Please note** group in every template covering four things: what the price does not include, what has to be true on site for the work to happen, that extra problems get quoted before anyone touches them, and this:
That is not a generic disclaimer. That is the specific sentence that stops a customer calling back in March about a boiler that was already failing in January — the single most common way a routine service turns into an argument.
Boiler service, leak callout, bathroom refit, radiator swap, blocked drain, emergency callout. Nothing merged, nothing quietly dropped.
A seventh block pulls the sign-off, payment terms and validity window out of the six templates and into one reusable footer. That is the correct shape for someone copy-pasting on a phone: edit the job-specific part, leave the boilerplate alone. Extra scope is usually a smell — here it followed from the stated use.
Every template reads "£[amount] [including/excluding VAT]". It did not invent a call-out rate, and it did not quietly assume VAT treatment for a business whose turnover it knows nothing about.
Out-of-hours work is where the money and the disputes are, and its note block reads much like the others. A plumber would probably add their own line about what counts as an emergency before sending it.
The stated problem was an hour a night retyping quotes into WhatsApp. What came back is a file that turns that hour into picking a heading and filling three brackets.
It is not a finished document. It is a starting point that already contains the clauses most people only add after the argument that taught them to. Under a minute on Smart.
Watch how it was made: https://elsedoes.com/share/65397fb61ed54ffaba6203a4165af456
plumbing_whatsapp_quote_templates.md 9.4 KB
By Heei