Budget & costs
5 guides
Introduction to the new Budget TabThe new Budget Tab gives teams a clearer, faster, and more flexible way to manage project budgets. By aligning estimating, expenses, and purchase order data in one place, it ensures your financial insights stay accurate, connected, and up to date.
Video · 13:17→How to Use the Budget TabThe Budget tab is a hub for a booked or in-progress job, showing estimating, costing, bids, payments and profit for each item in one place.
Video→How do I track budget vs actual costs in Bolster?Use the Budget page on a booked job to add actual costs and see how each item compares to its budget.
Video · 2:21→How do I add and categorize project expenses in Bolster?Track a job's bills and expenses by uploading a receipt or entering it manually, then link each line to a job item and add the receipt number, expense account and tax.
Video→How to Track Bills & Expenses for a Booked ProjectOnce a project is booked and in progress, it's important to properly track all bills, expenses, and receipts to maintain accurate job costing and financial reporting.
Video · 0:56→Change orders
5 guides
How to Use the Change Orders TabLearn how to find and use the Change Orders tab in an estimate to review quote versions, statuses, and detailed change summaries.
Video · 0:59→Manually Approving a Change Order Without Sending to the ClientRecord a change on a booked job and approve the change order without sending it, or attach a contract the client already signed.
Video · 3:50→How to View and Revert Change Order VersionsUse Change orders under Production in a project to see every version of your quote, review intermediate saves, and check out or revert to an earlier version.
Video→How to Access Explicit and Full Activities in Change OrdersUse the Change orders page to see every version of a quote, its status, and what changed in each one.
Video · 0:59→How Change Orders Affect Payment TermsWhen a change order is approved, Bolster does not create new payment term records or modify segment percentages. Instead, payment terms are dynamic — they always calculate their amounts based on the current quote total.
Video · 2:16→Scheduling & tasks
4 guides
Introduction to SchedulingLearn how to generate a schedule from an estimate, manage it on the Gantt chart, assign subcontractors or vendors, and notify everyone assigned.
Video · 12:13→Creating Scheduling TemplatesBuild schedule templates with phases, stages and tasks so you can start a new estimate's schedule from a template that fits the project.
Video→Using Tasks for Project ManagementLearn how to view and create tasks directly within a Bolster estimate.
Video · 0:30→How to Add a Task Item to an EstimateLearn how to add a task item to your estimate in Bolster to track action items like permits or material orders and assign them to contractors or vendors.
Video · 0:37→Messages & files
5 guides
Using Bolster Messages and ChannelsUse the Messages page and the in-estimate Messages sidebar to follow job activity and chat with your team or your customer.
Video · 2:34→Creating, editing and searching channelsUse channels to keep conversations organized by project, topic, or audience.
→Sending attachments to channelsUse attachments to share documents, photos, and project files in Messages.
→Bolster Drive – File ManagementBolster Drive is the central file repository in Bolster. Files you upload once can be used by your whole team at different stages of an estimate.
Video→How to Add Project Documents to a ProjectLearn how to add project documents like site photos, floor plans, and presentation files to a project, and control whether they're visible to the customer or shared internally.
Video · 0:48→
