Most CRMs make you fill out 14 fields to create a quote. We use four screens.
Step 1 — Customer
Name, phone, email, source. If the lead came from a web form, the customer data auto-fills. The system checks for duplicates — same phone number, same email, same address — and either merges with an existing record or creates a new one.
This takes about 15 seconds for a manual entry. For a web form lead, it takes zero seconds — the data is already there.
Step 2 — Location Details (With Wizard)
Origin address. Destination address. Access notes: stairs, elevator, long carry, parking permit, certificate of insurance. Home size (bedroom count, square footage if known). Conditional questions: if the origin has stairs, ask how many flights. If there’s an elevator, ask about building restrictions.
The wizard adapts to what you’re entering. A local move asks for origin and destination. A long-distance move asks for transit details. An international move asks for customs information. You never see fields that don’t apply.
Step 3 — Inventory + Calculator
Three modes:
- Room-by-room. Select a room, add items from a categorized list. The standard approach for in-home estimates and virtual surveys.
- Voice-driven (Bee AI). An AI agent that watches a virtual survey video and produces a draft inventory. The agent suggests items, the estimator confirms. Read our full post on Bee AI permissions for the current state of this feature.
- Manual. Freeform entry for experienced estimators who know what they’re looking at.
The calculator runs in real time as you add items. Every item has a cubic-foot value and a time estimate. The running total shows estimated crew size, estimated hours, and estimated cost — adjusted for the demand tier of the selected move date.
Step 4 — Workorders
A workorder is a unit of work for a crew. A local move typically has one workorder: load, drive, unload. A long-distance move might have three: load day, drive day, unload day. A large packing job might have four: pack day, load day, drive day, unload day.
Workorders are operational documents. They tell the crew what to do, when to show up, and what to expect. They’re not invoices — that’s a separate step.
The Single-Van Case
A 2-truck operator runs the same flow but skips multi-day workorders. They book a job, assign a crew, and the dispatcher sees it on the calendar. One workorder, one crew, one day. The flow doesn’t get in the way.
The Multi-Location Case
Same flow, branded per location. Lead comes in, gets routed by postal code to the right location’s pipeline. The New Opportunity form shows the right location’s rates, availability, and branding. The workorder flows to that location’s dispatch board. The owner sees both locations on a single dashboard.
No separate logins. No separate databases. No manual roll-up in a spreadsheet.
Why We Split Workorders from Invoices
Workorders are operational. They answer: What work are we doing, for which crew, on which day?
Invoices are financial. They answer: How much does the customer owe, and have they paid??
We made the mistake of merging them in v1. It cost us a year. A 3-day move needs 3 workorders and 1 invoice. A storage-in-transit job needs 1 workorder and 12 invoices. If you tie them together, either the operation team can’t restructure the work without breaking the invoice, or the finance team can’t adjust the invoice without breaking the schedule. Keeping them separate lets each team do their job without stepping on the other. (More on this in our workorder vs. invoice post.)
See the New Opportunity flow with your own data. 15-minute walkthrough.
References:
- Salesforce — Work order management — https://www.salesforce.com/products/field-service/resources/organize-your-work-order-management/
- IBM — “What Is a Work Order?” — https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/work-order
- Supermove office app — https://www.supermove.com/office-app