Quoting software for kitchen fitters.
A kitchen is one of the few jobs where you are out of pocket before you start and where the last day is longer than anybody allowed for. TradeDraft is built for both: a deposit taken in the same moment the customer says yes, and a rate book that already contains the small items that make up the final push.
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A deposit before the units are ordered
The order goes in and the money goes out, often weeks before you are on site. The deposit can be a percentage of the job or a set figure. On domestic work the customer can settle it by card as part of accepting, while the new kitchen is the thing they most want, and the money goes to your own Stripe account, not to us.
Should I take a deposit goes through how much to ask for and when. A common split for the rest is a payment once the units are in and the tops are templated, then the balance on completion; stage payments covers how to set it up.
Fit only, or supply and fit
They are different jobs, and the quote should read differently for each. On supply and fit you buy the kitchen, so the margin on the units is yours, and so is the problem when a door arrives scratched or a carcass is missing from the delivery. On a fit-only job the customer bought it, from a showroom or online, and the units go into the assumptions as customer-supplied, with no price against them.
Fit-only is where days get lost. Write down who checks the delivery against the order and when, that missing or damaged parts are for the customer to chase with their supplier, and how a return visit is charged if you turn up to a short delivery. Each of those goes on the quote as a numbered exclusion, so it is agreed before the delivery arrives.
Priced unit by unit, not as one number
A kitchen priced as a single figure is hard to defend and hard to change. The starter rate book prices base and wall units per unit, worktops by the metre and splashback tiling by the square metre, with the strip-out, the skip and the disposal of the old kitchen as items of their own. When the customer drops a wall unit or adds a larder, you change one line and the total follows.
Worktops are a job of their own
Laminate you cut, joint and fit on the day. Solid wood needs oiling on every face, the cut-outs included, and more coats once it is down, which is time worth pricing. Stone and quartz work differently again: the worktop company usually templates once the base units are fixed and fits a week or two later, and the kitchen stands without tops in between.
For stone, say on the quote that the units will be level and fixed ready for templating, and what you are and are not doing once the tops arrive. Then the wait between templating and fitting, and anything the templater finds, is already accounted for.
The gas and the electrics are somebody else’s lines
Connecting a gas appliance is work for a Gas Safe registered engineer, and in most cases the final electrical connection is work for a qualified electrician. The rate book keeps those as their own named lines, “Gas appliance connection — by a Gas Safe engineer” and “Electrical connection — by a qualified electrician”, so they are priced honestly and the customer can see who is doing what.
That matters twice over. It stops a quote reading as though you are doing work you may not lawfully do, and it stops a cost you are paying somebody else for quietly disappearing into your own margin.
The electrics are also where building regulations come in. In England, a new circuit is notifiable under Part P, and kitchens often need one: a dedicated supply for an induction hob or an oven is the usual case. An electrician registered with a competent person scheme self-certifies that work and the customer receives the certificate; anyone else has to involve building control before starting. In Wales a kitchen counts as a special location, so more of the work is notifiable there. Either way the certificate is the electrician’s, and the quote should say whose line it sits under.
The last day, priced before it arrives
Cornice, pelmet and plinth. End panels. Worktop cut-outs for the sink, the hob and the tap. Handles. Taking the old appliances away. None of it is difficult and all of it takes hours, and it is the part of the job most often absorbed rather than charged.
Every one of those is already in the rate book as its own item, so the price you send has them in it.
When the units do not fit the wall that is actually there
A wall that is out by 20mm, a floor that falls away, a soil pipe exactly where the tall unit goes. The standard terms already cover what you could not reasonably have spotted when you quoted. It then goes on an Additional Works sheet, priced and signed before the work is carried out. The alternative is raising it at the end, with the customer standing in a finished kitchen.
What it has nothing to do with
It does not plan the layout, render a visual, or produce a cutting list, and it does not talk to a supplier’s ordering system. Its work begins once the design is fixed: pricing the fit, getting it signed, pricing whatever the walls throw up, and invoicing it.
Questions worth asking first
Can I take a deposit before I order the units?
Yes, on domestic work. Set it as a percentage of the job or a fixed sum, and the customer can pay it by card in the same step as accepting the quote, into your own Stripe account. Card payment at acceptance is not offered on CIS or reverse-charge work, so on those jobs you would collect the deposit the usual way.
Can I quote a fit-only kitchen?
Yes. List the units in the assumptions as customer-supplied, so they stay out of the price, and add the exclusions that go with fit-only work: who checks the delivery, and how a return visit for missing parts is charged. The fitting, worktops, plumbing and disposal are priced from the rate book as usual.
How does it handle the gas and electrical connections?
Each has its own named line in the rate book, one for a Gas Safe engineer and one for a qualified electrician, so they are priced as what they are. That keeps the quote honest about who does what, and stops a cost you pay somebody else for disappearing into your margin.
How much is it?
£45 a month or £450 a year, flat, with no per-user charge. Start by 5 April and it’s £22.50 a month for your first 12 months.