Field Guide
Turn visit notes into scope and quote wording (you set the price)
External evidence (practitioner reports only); method not yet tested by Today’s Worker; example is illustrative
After a site visit, give AI your rough notes and your final price. It writes the customer-ready scope, inclusions and exclusions. It never sets a number. You check every figure and sign it.
The evidence is practitioner reports, not a study. Today’s Worker has not tested this method yet. The job below is invented.
What you get, and where not to use it
Outcome: a scope paragraph a homeowner can read in half a minute, plain inclusions and exclusions, and your total exactly as you gave it.
Do not use it for: prices, quantities, labor hours or material costs; code references, sizing or anything safety-related without your own check; or whole bid packages pasted into a chatbot.
How strong is the evidence?
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Evidence label | External evidence: practitioner reports only. Not tested by Today’s Worker. |
| Best source | An r/electricians thread, “Anyone tried using AI to help with paperwork?” (August 26, 2026). One electrician: “It helps with wording, not with pricing, and confusing those two is where guys get burned.” Another: “It’s great for making a framework. Don’t trust the numbers it spits out.” A third said his former business partner uploaded a whole tender package to an AI tool and waited for it to produce numbers, which made his own decision to leave the partnership easier. |
| Risk source | Smith Currie, “The Hidden Risks of Using AI on Construction Projects” (May 28, 2025): an AI-drafted scope “may mistakenly rely on outdated regulatory requirements,” and the tools “present incorrect information with confidence.” The firm advises human review before AI content is shared externally. |
| What it does not show | No measured time saving, win rate or error rate. These are anonymous forum comments and a law-firm warning. Treat it as a reasonable method to try, not a proven one. |
What to bring
- Your walkthrough notes or voice-memo transcript.
- Your price and line items, already decided.
- Your standard exclusions and warranty wording.
Decisions that stay with you
- Every number on the page.
- What is excluded.
- Whether you would sign your name under the wording.
Tools and setup
Any chat assistant on a phone or laptop, or the writing assistant in your field-service software if you already pay for it. About fifteen minutes to save the prompt and your exclusions list.
Worked example (illustration, not a real job)
EXAMPLE notes: “Hall bath. Tear out tub surround, keep tub. New cement board, 12x24 porcelain to ceiling, one niche. Customer supplies tile. Price 4,850. Not touching the valve.”
EXAMPLE output: a five-line scope (“We will remove the existing tub surround to the studs and keep the tub in place…”), an inclusions list, an exclusion (“Valve and trim replacement is not included. If the valve is found leaking, we will quote that separately.”), the total exactly as given, $4,850, and one item under QUESTIONS FOR ME: niche size.
Acceptance checks
- Total and line items match your input exactly.
- No task, material, brand, date or code reference appears that you did not give.
- Exclusions are present and plain.
- You read it aloud once and would sign it.
Failure cases
- The model “helpfully” adds a price, a timeline or a code citation. Delete it and rerun with the rule restated.
- It sounds canned. Add one line only you could write about this job.
- Customer details you did not need to share went into the chat. Leave out names and addresses when the wording does not need them.
Copy this prompt
You are my clerk. You write. You never price. Visit notes: [paste] Final price and line items (do not change): [paste] My standard exclusions: [paste] Write: 1. A scope paragraph a homeowner can read in 30 seconds. 2. Inclusions as bullets. 3. Exclusions as bullets. 4. The total exactly as I gave it. Rules: Add no task, material, brand, number, date or code reference I did not give you. If something is unclear, list it under QUESTIONS FOR ME instead of guessing. Plain words. No filler openers.
Before it goes out, check every number against your notes. After you send the quote, the follow-up drafts method picks up from there.
Version and test record
Method version 0.1. Sources checked 2026-10-15. Today’s Worker test: not yet run. When we run one, we will record the task, tool, date, acceptance-check results and any failure here, and change the evidence label to internal test.
This page is one of five graded method pages: draft, then edit and sign, research with a frontier check, learn with a hint-only tutor, visit notes to scope wording and lead reply and quote follow-up drafts. Each one says how strong the evidence is, not only what to do.