Documents — Contract, Proposal, Job Information, Change Order

The four documents at a glance

Document	Read by	Purpose	When
Contract	Customer + your team	The full agreement, with every line item, will, term, and signature.	Generated at close. Signed on the spot when possible.
Proposal	Customer	A deliberately lighter take-home that gives the customer enough to decide later.	Generated when the customer wants to think about it.
Job Information Sheet	Install crew	Everything the production team needs to start the job.	Generated after sale, before install.
Change Order	Customer + your team	A modification to an existing signed contract.	Generated after sale when scope changes.

The rest of this article walks through each one.

Contract

The contract is the full agreement — every detail of what's being sold and on what terms. It's the document the customer signs and the document your install team treats as the source of truth on what was promised.

A generated contract carries:

• The cover header — your company branding, the customer's name and address, the appointment date, your sales rep's name.
• The drawing — the canvas from the Drawing tab, rendered at a fixed scale so it reads cleanly. Only layers that are Included in the picked option appear; Recommended and Excluded layers don't.
• The project summary — totals, sub-totals, discounts, financing terms, and the option that was picked.
• The product list — every line item with quantities and prices, organised by the layer the products are attached to.
• Customer wills — the customer's responsibilities (leave access available, mark utilities, stow animals, etc.).
• Contractor wills — your company's promises (maintain a safe work environment, clean up after install, honour the warranty, etc.).
• Specifications — measurements, materials, and conditions that scope the job.
• Warranty — the warranty terms attached to the products and services sold.
• Notice of Right to Cancel — the legal 3-day cancellation notice (where the jurisdiction requires it).
• Recommendations — a separate section listing the layers that were Recommended but not Included in the picked option. The customer can opt into any of these later by signing a small addendum; this section is how Bidvio surfaces "what you turned down" as a real, written offer.
• Signatures — the signature lines for every person on the customer account who's flagged as a signer, plus your rep's signature. When signatures are captured on-screen in Summary, they're embedded directly here.

The contract is the heaviest document Bidvio produces, intentionally. Anything that could matter later — including what the customer didn't buy — is on it.

When to use it. Generate the contract at the close, when the customer has chosen an option and is ready to commit. The same document acts as agreement, receipt (with the deposit recorded), and install brief.

Proposal

The proposal is the lighter, take-home version of the contract. When the customer isn't ready to sign at the end of the appointment, the proposal is what they leave with — the bare minimum they need to make a decision later.

A generated proposal carries:

• The cover header — same branding and customer info as the contract.
• The drawing — same canvas, same layers, same scale.
• The project summary — high-level pricing for the option the rep recommended. Totals, sub-totals, financing terms if applicable.

That's it. The proposal deliberately omits:

• The full line-item product list (no per-product quantities or per-product prices).
• Customer wills and contractor wills (the agreement-level commitments).
• Specifications, warranty terms, and the Notice of Right to Cancel.
• The recommendations section.
• The signature lines (there's nothing to sign on a proposal).

The omissions are the point. A customer reading a 12-page contract at their kitchen table that night is more likely to put it down and not come back. A two-page proposal with the drawing, the picture of what they get, and the price is a decision aid — not a legal document. When they call back to say yes, the rep generates the full contract from the same appointment data and the customer signs that.

When to use it. Generate the proposal when the customer wants to think about it. Share it on the spot via email, text, or AirDrop so the customer leaves the appointment with it in their inbox.

Job Information Sheet

The job-information sheet is the install crew's document. The customer never sees it (unless they specifically ask); the production team treats it as the cheat sheet for the job.

A generated job-information sheet carries:

• The cover header — customer info and job address so the crew can find the property.
• Appointment Information — the answers to the customer interview questions captured in the Information tab, plus the completed meeting plan. This is how production knows what was discussed on site without having to call the rep.
• Job Information — the work itself, organised two ways:
  • By layer — each layer with its attached products, measurements, drop zones, and inspection notes. Useful when the crew is walking through the install layer by layer.
  • By product — each product with the layers it appears on and the quantities. Useful for ordering materials and staging the truck.
• The drawing — the same canvas, so the crew can match what they're reading to what they're looking at on the property.
• Specifications — same specs as the contract, so the crew has the materials and conditions for reference.

The job-information sheet is also where any add-on lines appear — products or scope that were added to a layer after the original sale (via change order or after-the-fact admin edit). That makes it the most up-to-date description of what the crew is actually building.

When to use it. Generate the job-information sheet after the sale, before the install. Hand it (or email it) to whoever's running the crew. If a change order lands between sale and install, regenerate so the crew has the current scope.

Change Order

A change order is a modification to an existing signed contract. When the customer wants to add work, remove work, or change products after the original contract is signed but before the job is complete, the change order is the document that captures the change.

A generated change order carries:

• The cover header — references the original contract by appointment ID so the audit trail is clear.
• The project summary — the delta from the original contract: what's being added, what's being removed, and the new total.
• The product list — only the products that are new, removed, or changed. Untouched products from the original contract aren't repeated.
• Customer and contractor wills — any wills specific to the change order's scope.
• Signatures — the customer signs the change order separately from the original contract. The original stays signed and intact; the change order rides on top.

Change orders are managed in a parallel structure in Bidvio (see Managing customers & jobs) — they hang off the original appointment rather than replacing it, so the contract history reads as "original sale + every change since" rather than "whatever the latest version says."

When to use it. Generate a change order anytime scope shifts after a contract is signed. The job-information sheet for the install crew picks up the change as soon as the change order is signed, so the crew doesn't accidentally build to the original scope.

What's on every document

Three things appear on every Bidvio document regardless of type:

• The cover header with your company branding and the customer's identifying info.
• The drawing from the appointment's canvas. Customers see what they're buying; install crews see what they're building. Including the drawing on every document is how Bidvio keeps the visual and the prose aligned — there's no version where the words and the picture disagree.
• A page footer with page numbers and the appointment's identifying info, so a printed page picked up out of context can still be traced back to the right job.

Sharing the documents

From the Documents tab in Summary, every generated document can be shared with the customer through whatever channel makes sense at the appointment:

• Email — the most common path. The customer gets a copy in their inbox they can forward to a spouse or save with their records.
• Text message — useful when the customer prefers texts and the file size is small enough.
• AirDrop — instant transfer to the customer's iPhone or iPad when they're sitting next to the rep with their device unlocked. No typing email addresses, no waiting for delivery.

The same document can be shared through multiple channels at once — text the customer a copy for their phone and email it to their spouse without re-generating.

The drawing is the connective tissue

One thing worth understanding across all four documents: the drawing in Bidvio is not a separate asset that gets re-exported per document. It's the same canvas, rendered into each PDF directly. That means:

• A change to the drawing — adding a layer, moving a shape, toggling a layer's inclusion — propagates to every document the next time you generate.
• The proposal and the contract show the same picture, so a customer comparing the take-home proposal to the contract they later sign can't get a "but the drawing was different" surprise.
• The job-information sheet's drawing matches what the customer signed, so the install crew is building to the document the customer agreed to.

Regeneration and source of truth

Documents in Bidvio are regenerated, not edited. When a number on the option card changes, the contract isn't patched in place — the next time you generate the contract, the new total is in it. The appointment data is the source of truth; the PDFs are snapshots of that data at the moment they were generated.

That means:

• Before the customer signs, regenerate freely. The latest generation reflects the latest appointment state.
• After the customer signs, treat the signed contract as the historical record of what was sold. Subsequent changes flow through change orders, not by regenerating the original contract.
• For the job-information sheet, regenerate as the scope evolves through change orders so the install crew is always reading the current state.

The closing-the-appointment flow (in Summary) captures and locks the signed contract automatically so the post-sale rules above kick in without the rep having to think about it.