Contractor Paperwork Guides

Five guides in the order a job needs them: what to call your price, what to put on it, when it has to be in writing, how to invoice so it gets paid, and what you are signing when the money finally arrives. Every one of them ends at the blank form it is about.

Before the work starts

Everything that happens before anybody has agreed a price. What to call the number you are sending, what has to be on it, and the point at which a handshake stops being enough.

Estimate vs Quote vs Bid: Which One Should You SendThe practical difference between an estimate, a quote and a bid, and the one line that protects you whichever word you use.What to Include on a Contractor EstimateA checklist of everything a contractor estimate should carry, from license numbers to the exclusions line that prevents most disputes.Do Contractors Need a Written Contract for Every JobWhen a handshake is legally enough, when it is not, and the five clauses worth having even on a small job.

After the work is done

Getting paid, and what you are signing when the money arrives. These are the two that cost real money when they are done wrong.

How to Write a Contractor Invoice That Gets PaidThe seven things a contractor invoice must contain, the three that get left off most often, and why a due date beats a payment term.Conditional vs Unconditional Lien Waiver ExplainedWhat separates a conditional lien waiver from an unconditional one, when to sign each, and the mistakes that give up rights you still needed.

The order a job actually puts these in

Read from the top and they follow one job from the first phone call to the last check. Somebody asks what it will cost, so the first question is what to call the number you send back, because estimate, quote and bid are not three words for the same thing and the one you pick decides whether the price is allowed to move later. Then what has to be on it, which comes down mostly to the exclusions line, because almost every argument at the end of a job is about something nobody wrote down at the start of it.

They say yes. Now the question is whether an accepted estimate is already enough or you need a real contract. Often it is enough. In several states, above a dollar threshold, it is not, and the penalty is not a fine, it is that you cannot enforce the agreement you thought you had.

The work happens. Then you send an invoice that gets paid, which is a different skill from sending an invoice, and when the money shows up somebody hands you a waiver to sign. That is the last one: conditional or unconditional, progress or final. Sign the wrong one and you have given up a lien right on money you have not actually received yet, which is the most expensive mistake anything on this page can save you from.

Every one of them ends at a blank form

None of these are written to be read and admired. Each one exists because a particular document is easy to get wrong, and each one finishes at that document, free, filled in on the page and downloaded as a real PDF:

How to Write a Contractor Invoice That Gets Paid ends at the blank contractor invoice.
Conditional vs Unconditional Lien Waiver Explained ends at the blank lien waiver.
Estimate vs Quote vs Bid: Which One Should You Send ends at the blank contractor estimate.
What to Include on a Contractor Estimate ends at the blank contractor estimate.
Do Contractors Need a Written Contract for Every Job ends at the blank contractor agreement.

The two that change depending on where the job is

Three of the five are the same in every state. Two are not. The lien waiver guide is the bigger one, because twelve states print the wording of a waiver in their own statute, and in those states a general form can be read more broadly than you meant it or can fail to count at all. All twelve of those forms are on this site, word for word out of the statute, from the lien waiver page. The written contract question is the other one, because the threshold above which a home improvement contract has to be in writing is set state by state and the number is different in each.

What none of this is

It is not legal advice, and no page on this site is. It is what these documents normally contain and what usually goes wrong with them, written so you know which question to ask. Where something turns on a number in a statute, read the statute, and every guide that leans on one links straight to it. Where there is real money attached, pay a lawyer once to review the form you are then going to use for the next two hundred jobs. That is the advice in the contract guide as well, and it is the cheapest legal spend a small contractor ever makes.

Where the rest of the answers are

A guide is for a question whose answer is a few paragraphs. The rest of the site is shaped for the other kinds of question. If the answer is a number, there are 55 calculators that show their working and hand you a material list or a payment schedule at the end. If it is a lookup you need in your hand on site, there are 30 reference charts. If it is a five minute safety meeting, there are 52 toolbox talks that print with the sign in sheet on the back. And if the document already exists and simply needs something done to it, there are 17 PDF tools that run inside your own browser and never upload the file.