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Turn a Client's Spreadsheet Into a Priced Quote, Same Day

No more retyping every line of a client's tender spreadsheet into your own quoting tool by hand. No more losing an afternoon to a document with twenty rows of kit, quantities and prices. No more a quote taking three days to go out because someone had to find time to build it.

WorkflowsAutomationsPosted: 10/09/2026Read time: 3 mins

Article Chapters

Pricing the spreadsheet, same dayQuoting from a spreadsheet is slowWhere it costs youWhat the automation doesWhat happens nextWhat you need firstGetting set upCommon questions

Who it's for

Anyone who gets sent a client's spreadsheet, tender or schedule of works and has to turn it into a priced quote of their own.

What it saves you

The hours spent retyping line items, checking every quantity and price twice, and building the quote from scratch in your own system.

Set up time

Quick to build once we've seen a real example of the spreadsheets your clients send you

Pricing the spreadsheet, same day

When a client sends over a spreadsheet, a tender document, or a schedule of works, Build Concierge reads it directly.

It works out how many genuine line items are on it, ignoring title rows, totals and section headers, then pulls out the description, quantity and price for each one.

Those lines go straight into a priced quote in your job management system, with the client and site matched up automatically.

What used to take an afternoon of retyping can be ready the same day.

Why quoting from a spreadsheet is slow

The spreadsheet itself isn't the problem, it's moving what's on it into your own system.

  1. Someone has to open it
  2. Work out which rows are actually items and which are totals or headings
  3. Then retype the description, quantity and price for each one into your quoting tool by hand

A tender with twenty line items across different trades means twenty rows to check and twenty rows to retype, on top of everything else that day.

Where it costs you

The obvious cost is the time.

A spreadsheet with real line items on it, ladders, sensors, cabling, whatever the job needs, still has to be turned into a quote your own system understands, and that's a manual job every time.

The slower cost is the quote itself arriving late.

A client who sent a spreadsheet is often comparing it against other suppliers, and the quote that lands the same day is the one still in the running by the time they decide.

What the automation does

  1. Reads the spreadsheet or tender document as it arrives, exactly as it was sent.
  2. Works out how many real line items are on it, ignoring title rows, section headers and any "Total" summary rows.
  3. Pulls the description, quantity and price for each genuine line, whatever trade or discipline it covers.
  4. Matches the client and site automatically, creating a new one if it doesn't already exist in your job management system.
  5. Builds each line into a priced quote, with the unit price worked out from the quantity and cost on the spreadsheet.
  6. Sets a sensible close date on the quote automatically, so it doesn't sit open indefinitely.

What happens next

The quote is ready in your job management system the same day the spreadsheet arrives, built from the real lines on it rather than a rough estimate. From there it's yours to check and send, or to adjust if anything needs a human eye on it before it goes out.

What you need first

  1. A typical example of the spreadsheets or tender documents your clients actually send you, so the automation can be built around your real layout.
  2. A clear view of what counts as a line item versus a heading or a total in your documents, since these vary between clients.
  3. A decision on where the quote should land once it's built, ready to check, or straight out to the client.

Getting set up

We look at real spreadsheets your clients have sent you.

Every client's spreadsheet is laid out slightly differently. We build around the ones you actually receive, not a generic template.

We agree what counts as a line, and what doesn't.

Title rows, section headers and "Total" rows all need to be recognised and skipped. We test this against your real documents until it's reliable.

We test it against quotes you've already built by hand.

Real spreadsheets, checked against the quote a person would have built from them, so anything it misses gets fixed before it goes live.

Common Questions

It's software that helps a field service or trades business turn a request for work into a priced quote. The simpler versions just give you a form to build a quote in. Build Concierge goes a step further and reads a client's own spreadsheet or tender document directly, turning it into a quote without anyone retyping the line items.

It's built around the spreadsheets your own clients actually send you, since these differ from business to business. Once it's set up around your real examples, it recognises the same layout reliably going forward.

It works out the price directly from the quantity and cost already on the spreadsheet, so the numbers come from the client's own document rather than a guess. Most businesses still have someone check the finished quote before it goes out, at least to begin with.

A quoting template still needs someone to read the client's spreadsheet and retype every line into it. This reads the spreadsheet itself and builds the quote directly, so the retyping step disappears.

That's exactly the kind of document it's built for, a tender with several different types of work bundled onto one spreadsheet. Each line is priced individually regardless of which trade it belongs to.

Ready to stop retyping spreadsheets into quotes?

Get in touch with the Build Concierge team and we’ll set it up around the way you work.

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