FieldQuote: Job Estimating for Contractors Who Work in the Field, Not Behind a Desk

The idea for FieldQuote came out of running ProDirt Trail Building. When you're quoting a job on-site, you don't have time to pull up a spreadsheet, remember what your loaded hourly rate is, manually calculate drive time costs, and produce something professional enough to hand to a client. You need to build a number fast — and that number needs to be right, not a guess.

The apps that exist for this are either overkill (built for construction firms with estimators on staff) or they use industry averages instead of your actual costs. Neither is useful if you're an independent contractor who knows exactly what your equipment costs per hour and what you need to make to stay profitable.

The Core Idea: Your Numbers, Not Industry Averages

You set up a cost profile once. Labor rate per hour, equipment cost per hour, overhead, minimum profit margin, home base address. The app calculates a true cost per hour from those inputs and uses it for every estimate going forward. Every line item you add — whether it's time-based, materials, or a flat fee — gets priced against your real costs.

The result is two numbers on every quote: the floor price (the absolute minimum you can take this job for and not lose money) and the suggested quote price (floor plus your margin). A margin slider lets you adjust the quote price in real time while the floor stays locked. You see both numbers at all times so you always know exactly how much room you're giving a client.

Built for On-Site Use

Distance auto-calculation

Tap the location pin on any job, type in the job address, and the app calculates the drive distance from your home base and adds mobilization cost automatically. Address autocomplete uses OpenRouteService — no Google Maps API key required, no billing surprises if usage picks up. If you've already got the client in your address book with a saved location, selecting them auto-populates the distance.

Task and Equipment libraries

You build up a library of your common tasks over time — things you quote repeatedly with a standard labor estimate. Add one to a job and the line item pre-populates with your default hours and equipment. Equipment has its own library with per-unit hourly rates so you can swap between different equipment on a job without re-entering costs each time.

Quote to invoice, same workflow

When a job converts from quoted to won, one tap flips it to invoice mode. The same line items, same client, same totals — but the PDF header says "Invoice" instead of "Quote," adds a payment due date based on your terms (Net 15, Net 30, Due on Receipt, or custom), and drops the floor price and margin from the document. Payment methods you've enabled in your profile — cash, check, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, credit — show on the invoice automatically.

The PDF

Every quote and invoice generates a clean single-page PDF with your logo, contractor info, full client details, line item breakdown, and totals. Insurance certificate, if you've uploaded one, goes on page two. Share it from the app to any installed app — email, WhatsApp, Google Drive, whatever. The email body automatically says "quote" or "invoice" depending on the job type so you don't send an invoice and accidentally call it a quote.

Client Address Book and Calendar

Clients live in an address book with name, phone, email, address, and notes. When you win a job, the Schedule button creates a Google Calendar event with the job details and sends an invite to the client's email address. Scheduled date shows on the job card so your job list doubles as a rough schedule. Unscheduling removes the calendar event cleanly.

Data and Backup

Everything is stored locally on the device — Room database, no account required, no subscription. Google Drive backup is opt-in from Settings. When enabled, it creates versioned backups in a "FieldQuote Backups" folder in your Drive — one timestamped JSON file per backup, max 10 versions before it starts rotating the oldest out. You can restore from any saved version, and you can open the JSON directly from Drive even without the app if you ever need to.

Why Android, Not a Web App

A web app needs a network connection. The whole point of this app is that it works standing in a field where you might have one bar of LTE or nothing. The distance calculation needs the ORS API, so that specific feature requires connectivity — but building a quote, generating a PDF, and pulling up a saved client? All local. No cell service required.

It's also faster. Native Compose UI with a local Room database is instant. There's no waiting for a web form to load, no lag when you add a line item. You're standing next to a client — you don't have time for a web app that hesitates.

What's Next

Multi-contractor support (for when you're subbing out labor and need to track it), photo attachments on line items, and a recurring jobs feature for maintenance contracts. If you're using it and hit something you need, the contact link is in the footer — that's the fastest way to get something on the list.