Software: estimating for decorators
Painting and decorating estimating software for UK firms, priced room by room
You survey on the phone, room by room. The estimate works out the square metres, coats and hours with your own rates, and after the job you see whether it was right.
A survey that prices itself
Painting and decorating estimating software in the UK comes down to one question: how much wall, ceiling, door and skirting is in this house, and how many hours and litres does it take to finish it in two coats? In most firms the answer lives in a spreadsheet, a survey notebook and the owner's experience. That works until there are ten surveys a week and the estimates get written at the kitchen table at night.
We build estimating software for painters that prices the way you do: per room, per surface, per coat, with your own rates and outputs. It is one part of the software for painters and decorators we build; the accepted estimate later becomes a job sheet and a slot on the board.
Photos and a message as a first draft estimate
An example: the AI works from your own prices per m2 and per coat, you decide.
Measuring room by room on the phone
An estimate that holds starts at the survey. On the phone you pick a room, enter length, width and height, and take off the windows and doors. The software works out walls and ceiling, and you tick what needs doing.
| Line per room | How the software measures | What you add |
|---|---|---|
| Walls | Perimeter times height, less openings | Surface: new plaster, plasterboard, paper, previously painted |
| Ceiling | Length times width | Stains, cracks, an old textured coating |
| Stripping paper | Wall area that has paper on it | Layers, vinyl or woodchip |
| Prep | Per square metre of wall or ceiling | Filling, sanding, stain block, mist coat on new plaster |
| Doors and frames | Per item, one or both sides | Satinwood or gloss, colour |
| Skirting and architrave | Per linear metre | Woodwork colour or cut in with the wall |
| Stairs and banister | Per staircase, as an option | Treads, risers, spindles, handrail |
Wallpaper is counted differently. The software works out rolls from the wall height, the roll length and the pattern repeat, adds the waste you normally allow, and puts lining paper on its own line where the walls need it. Feature walls get their own line too, because a single wall in a bold paper takes longer per square metre than four plain ones. The customer sees the number of rolls on the estimate, so there is no argument about who orders what and whether the batch numbers match.
Colour and sheen sit with the room. They go onto the job sheet, and when the customer rings two years later about the hall, the colour code is still in their file.
What estimating software for painters has to know
- Coats per surface: a mist coat and two on new plaster, two on painted walls, three to go from dark to light
- Coverage per litre for each paint, rounded up to the tins you order
- Extras found once it is masked up, signed by the customer on the phone
- Options beside the estimate: the stairs, an extra colour, the skirting
- An uplift for occupied homes: dust sheets, moving furniture, clearing up each day
- Access as its own line: scaffold or powered access, with the days it stands
- A buffer for exteriors in the plan, not in the hours
- Whether the customer buys the paint or you supply it
Your outputs, not a package's
A standard package prices with outputs someone else decided. How many square metres a crew rolls per hour on a flat wall, how long a door and frame takes, how long masking up an occupied living room takes: you know that better. In the system we build, those outputs sit in a table you manage.
| What you set | Where it shows in the estimate | What job costing shows |
|---|---|---|
| Hours per square metre, per surface and coat | Hours per room and per line | Planned against worked hours per job |
| Coverage per coat and per paint | Litres and tins per colour | Ordered against used |
| Rate per line or per hour | Amount per room | Margin per job and per kind of work |
| Uplift for occupied homes | Extra time for protection and clearing | Whether the uplift holds |
| Uplift for height | Scaffold or powered access as a line | What the access really cost |
After a few months, job costing tells you whether your outputs are right. A line that always overruns, you adjust; a kind of work that always loses margin, you price differently. To check a margin, use the margin calculator.
Exteriors price differently from rooms. You measure per elevation, with windows, sills and fascias apart, and each surface gets its own lines: washing down, raking out and filling cracks, a stabilising coat and two coats of masonry paint. Access is a line of its own. Collective protection comes before personal, and ladders suit low-risk, short tasks. The weather is a buffer on the board, not hours in the estimate.
Hours from the estimate on the planning board
Rain on Wednesday
The exterior in Bath is booked on Wednesday, with an 80 percent chance of rain, on new render that the data sheet says needs one more dry day.
Thursday is dry. The board moves the exterior and the cherry picker to Thursday, Dan finishes the lounge in Bishopston on Wednesday, and the client in Bath gets a text.
Sorted: Exterior to Thursday
An example of what we can build, with made-up names and sites. You choose which rules the board checks.
An accepted estimate plans itself in
An estimate of 64 hours for two decorators is four crew days. When the customer accepts, the system suggests a week on the board, with drying time between coats and the paint delivery date. For an exterior it checks the forecast; if the planned day is wet, the exterior moves and the crew goes indoors.
That is where a standalone estimating tool stops and a system of your own carries on. The hours in the estimate become the hours on the job sheet, the job sheet becomes the invoice, and the hours worked go back into job costing. How we build planning for sites in general is on construction scheduling software; hours per crew on a time tracking app. If you plan in Excel today, read Excel scheduling or planning software and replace Excel with software.
Spreadsheet, off-the-shelf app or your own estimating
- Outputs
- Spreadsheet or off-the-shelf appYour formulas in a spreadsheet, or the app's outputs
- Your own estimating, built for youYour outputs per surface and coat, in a table you change yourself
- Survey
- Spreadsheet or off-the-shelf appOn paper, typed up later
- Your own estimating, built for youOn the phone, room by room, with photos
- From estimate to job
- Spreadsheet or off-the-shelf appTyped again into the diary and the job sheet
- Your own estimating, built for youThe accepted estimate becomes the job sheet and the plan
- Job costing
- Spreadsheet or off-the-shelf appRarely, because the hours live elsewhere
- Your own estimating, built for youPer job, planned against worked
- Colour history
- Spreadsheet or off-the-shelf appOn a tin lid or in a folder
- Your own estimating, built for youPer customer and per room, found years later
A spreadsheet is fine on your own with three estimates a week. From two crews on, you lose more time retyping than pricing. When building pays off over buying is in build vs buy software.
VAT, CIS and invoices from the same estimate
What is in the estimate decides the invoice. So the software asks at the survey what decides the tax, and puts it in the right place.
| What the estimate asks | Why | What goes on the invoice |
|---|---|---|
| Occupied home or empty | Decorating an occupied home is 20 percent; renovating a home empty for 2 years before the work can be 5 percent | The rate per job, with evidence attached when it is 5 percent |
| Who supplies the paint | Paint you supply with the work goes on the same rate as the work | Only what you supply |
| Homeowner or contractor | Working for a main contractor puts you under CIS: 20 percent deducted if registered, 30 percent if not, none with gross payment status | The CIS deduction shown, statements kept with the job |
| Your income | Sole traders over £50,000 qualifying income keep digital records for Making Tax Digital from April 2026; over £30,000 from April 2027 | Every invoice and cost ready for the quarterly update |
More on invoicing in e-invoicing in the UK. If your quotes still live in Word, start with our quote template.
A living room, hall and stairs, worked out
| Line | Quantity | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Strip paper, hall | 38 m2 | 9.5 |
| Prep walls | 142 m2 | 14.2 |
| Walls, 2 coats | 142 m2 | 42.6 |
| Ceilings, 2 coats | 46 m2 | 18.4 |
| Doors and frames, satinwood | 6 items | 9 |
| Total | 93.7 |
With two decorators that is six crew days, plus drying time after the prep. The software works this out while you are still on site; on the software for painters page we assumed 48 minutes per estimate at the kitchen table. The stairs sit beside it as an option, with their own hours. Rates per hour or per square metre are yours to set; they are not in this example.
Your own outputs in a first version
- A conversation over your last ten estimatesWe look at ten estimates and how they turned out. From those we take your lines, your outputs and the questions you ask at every survey.
- A fixed price for the projectAfter the conversation you get a fixed price for the estimating, and for what comes with it if you want: job sheets, a board, a link to your accounts.
- Surveying beside your old wayFor a few weeks you survey on the phone and still write the estimate the old way too. Where the numbers differ, we adjust the outputs.
AI can write the first draft from photos and a customer's message; see AI quote generator and AI for construction. If you run more trades under one roof, see software for construction companies, or the quoting we build for joinery and landscapers. What custom software costs is in custom software development cost. How we build is on custom software; to talk first, use contact.
Custom software
How VBS helps you with this
We build the platform your business runs on every day: your spreadsheets, emails and paperwork in one system that does what you do.
- Your workflow mapped first, then a fixed price
- Screens for the office, the client and the road
- Hosting, backups and security managed by us on AWS
How we approach it is on our page about Custom software.
Estimates ready when the survey is done?
Send us three estimates from last month. We show you how they would look in estimating built for your firm.
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