Adding lines to an estimate

Once you've created an estimate and opened the worksheet, you can start adding cost lines. Each line represents a specific cost item — for example, "Supply concrete for footings" or "Install electrical conduit".

When to use this

Use this after you've created an estimate and opened the Estimate Worksheet. This is the primary way to build up your cost breakdown line by line.

Prerequisites

• An existing unlocked estimate on a project
• The Estimate Worksheet open in your browser (click the estimate name from the Estimating subtab)

Walkthrough

Adding a line

1. Right-click anywhere in the worksheet to open the context menu
2. Select Add New Line
3. A dialog opens with three sections:

Primary information:

• Category (required) — the cost category from your project's cost centre (e.g. "PW.003.01 Footings"). If you right-clicked on an existing category row, this will be pre-filled.
• Stage — for Stage Billing projects, assigns this line to a billing milestone (e.g. "B. Base"). Not used for Progress Billing projects.
• Cost Type — a secondary classification for the type of spend (e.g. Materials, Labour, Subcontractor)
• Allowance Type — designates the line as a Prime Cost or Provisional Sum if applicable. Most lines leave this blank.

Item:

• Item (required) — select a NetSuite item (e.g. a service item or non-inventory purchase item)
• Filter Items by Category — when checked, the Item dropdown only shows items associated with the selected category. This is useful when your item list is large.
• Description — free text for project-specific context
• Quantity — defaults to 1
• Rate — the unit cost
• Amount — calculated automatically (Quantity × Rate)

Other costs & tax:

• Contingency — a risk buffer, entered as either a percentage or a dollar amount (entering one calculates the other)
• Margin — profit margin, defaulting to the project's Default Margin %. Also bidirectional between percentage and dollar amount.
• Freight, Sales Tax, and Escalation — additional cost adjustments, each available as percentage or dollar amount. These fields are only visible if enabled in General Preferences.

A summary panel on the right shows running totals as you fill in the fields.

4. Click Add Row to save the line and close the dialog

How the worksheet organises lines

Lines are automatically organised into a tree structure based on their category. When you add a line under a category that doesn't exist in the worksheet yet, FullClarity creates the parent category rows automatically. Amounts roll up through the hierarchy — category totals reflect the sum of all lines within them.

The summary rows at the bottom of the worksheet show the overall estimate totals: Subtotal (sum of all line amounts), Total Contingency, Escalation, and Total (the final estimate value including all other costs and margin).

Adding multiple items quickly

If you need to add several lines under the same category with minimal detail, right-click and select Add Multiple. This opens a streamlined dialog where you select a category and then pick multiple items at once. The lines are created with default values — you can then edit quantities, rates, and other details directly in the worksheet.

Editing lines

You can edit lines in two ways:

• Edit dialog — right-click a line and select Edit to reopen the full dialog with all fields
• Inline editing — click directly on a cell in the worksheet to edit it in place. Changes are saved automatically.

Other context menu options

The right-click context menu provides additional options beyond adding and editing lines:

• Delete — removes the selected line from the estimate
• Collapse / Expand — collapses or expands category groups in the tree, useful for navigating large estimates
• Add New Line and Add Multiple — as described above

The available options depend on what you've right-clicked — right-clicking a category row offers different options than right-clicking an individual line.

What success looks like

After clicking Add Row, the line appears in the worksheet under the correct category. The category total and estimate summary rows at the bottom update to include the new line's amount. If you added a line under a category not previously in the worksheet, a new parent category row appears automatically.

Gotchas

• Category structure drives your estimate layout. Choose your cost centre carefully when creating the project, as it determines which categories are available.
• Use "Import All Cost Centre Categories" when creating the estimate if you want a complete category skeleton to fill in, rather than adding categories one at a time.
• The Applied checkbox on each line controls whether it's included in the estimate totals. Lines are applied by default — uncheck it to exclude a line without deleting it.
• Contingency and Margin are separate from the line amount. The Amount column shows Quantity × Rate. Contingency, margin, and other costs are added on top to calculate the Gross Amount.

For a complete list of all columns available in the estimate worksheet, including their default labels and hide options, see Estimate columns.