Surfacely help

The fastest path from sign-up to your first quote — and why getting set up properly today pays you back on every job from here on.

Your business details appear on every quote, invoice, proposal, and client portal. Get them right once and your brand shows up consistently on every job.

Clients and sites are the foundation every quote and job sits on. The two minutes you spend getting them right saves repeat data entry forever.

The five-layer structure — Client, Site, Building, Area, Surface — is what makes every re-quote, re-paint, and portfolio insight possible.

Surfacely runs on every device with the same data. Knowing which tool to reach for on which job saves you real time.

Area, Surface, Building, Site, Speed Step, Prep — a plain-language reference for every term Surfacely uses.

One pricing profile drives every quote. Set it up properly and your margin is protected on every job without thinking about it.

The single biggest lever on your profitability. Get this right and every quote you send is profitable by default.

A clean way to charge for weekend, night, or restricted-hours work without losing margin.

Materials are organised into categories that each surface type pulls from automatically. Set them up once and your paint costs are right on every quote.

Surfacely ships with verified spread rates for every top brand in your market — no guessing, no googling, no margin bleeding into paint overruns.

Build reusable templates for scaffold, access equipment, masking, and your fixed business costs. Apply them to any quote with one tap.

Surfacely replaces vague "easy / hard" estimates with 8 precise speed steps. Pick the right step per surface and your hours are always realistic.

Add the surfaces your crew paints most often as one-tap templates. Future quotes become dramatically faster.

Surfacely locks rates into each quote at creation time. Here's why that protects you — and how to handle mid-job price changes cleanly.

Enter your real crew and the calculator builds one loaded hourly rate including the on-costs painters usually forget — plus a section for costing your own time.

Stop small jobs pricing too low. Set a minimum number of hours, a minimum amount of paint, and round up to the nearest half-day — applied to the required work only.

A gentle nudge when your pricing is getting old, so you do not quote on out-of-date numbers. Confirm your rates are current in one tap.

Surfacely adds a wastage buffer to every paint quantity so what you quote matches what you actually buy. The default is 10% — here's how it works and when to change it.

What actually ages a paint job: UV and colour, weather, wear, and the coating tech underneath. Plain-language background you can share with homeowners.

Simple, household-only checks — sheen, chalk/rub, tape adhesion, fade, oil-vs-water, and spotting damage — that a homeowner can run during self-scope to give you a clear picture of condition.

The full flow from walking into a room to having every surface measured and ready to quote. This is the loop you'll run hundreds of times.

The 8-step scale replaces vague estimates. Here's exactly when to use each one, with examples from real jobs.

Prep is a percentage uplift on painting hours, not a separate line. Picking the right level is how you charge for the actual work, not an average.

Surfacely defaults to brush/roll and lets you switch to spray on any surface. Here's when each makes you money — and when it costs it.

On exterior jobs, some surfaces need washing but no paint. Surfacely has a first-class "wash only" mode so these surfaces are priced correctly.

Windows are made of frames, reveals, sills, and architraves — not a single area. Surfacely measures each component separately so the price is honest.

Balustrades are fiddly to price. Surfacely's component system produces a realistic number in seconds instead of a guess.

Capture photos as you scope. Surfacely's AI analyses them in the background and surfaces observations that speed up assessment and quoting.

A structured sweep through hazards, access, defects, exclusions, and notes. Skip it and you'll miss things that bite you mid-job.

Send a homeowner a link before you visit. They walk their property with their phone — photos, the spaces and surfaces they want painted, a few quick measurements, and any notes. You review it and…

A guided walk-through of every screen a homeowner steps through — useful for painters who want to know exactly what their client is being asked, and for homeowners who are about to start one.

When a homeowner finishes their self-scope, a review panel appears on the project. Check what they sent, then import it — Surfacely creates the building and areas with surfaces, measurements, and…

Every photo taken in Surfacely carries location and direction data. This feeds the AI, flags off-site photos, and anchors exterior aspect labels automatically.

Tap the ƒ button on any surface to see the exact formula behind its hours, area, and material quantities. Nothing is a black box.

When a homeowner fills in the enquiry form on your website, Surfacely creates a lead and emails them a branded self-scope invite straight away. By the time you see the project in your pipeline, the…

Put a branded enquiry form on your website. Every submission becomes a lead in Surfacely automatically, ready to convert.

When a potential client enquires, they enter your pipeline as a lead. One tap converts them into a full project — with client, site, and building already set up.

Every quote is generated from the surfaces you measured. Here's how to turn a scoped building into a professional, send-ready quote in minutes.

When a client asks for changes, Surfacely creates a new version rather than overwriting the old. Every conversation is auditable.

When a job needs a premium paint, change the cost once on the quote — not globally. Other quotes stay untouched.

Surfacely snapshots your T&Cs onto every quote at the moment it's sent. Locale-aware, legally defensible, and you only configure it once.

One tap sends a branded quote and opens a portal where the client can accept it with their signature. Here's what they see and what happens next.

Before you send, Surfacely surfaces issues that would have cost you money. Treat it like a pre-flight checklist.

Once a client accepts a quote, it locks permanently. The accepted quote is the legal record — any changes go through variations instead.

Every project moves through a defined set of states. Knowing which status means what lets you read your pipeline at a glance.

Choose the right type at the start and Surfacely tunes the entire workflow to match. Choosing wrong creates friction on every screen.

Once a job is won, put it on the calendar — set a start date, crew size and working week, and Surfacely works out the finish date for you.

What you can delete, what stays locked, and the 30-day grace period that means a deleted draft isn't wiped the instant you tap the bin.

Every project has a private portal where the client views and acts on what you send them. No login, no app to install — just a link.

A quote is the price. A proposal is the pitch. Painters who send both on bigger jobs win more work.

The AI draft button writes a full proposal from your project data in seconds. You review, edit, and personalise before sending.

Quick field updates — text, photos, voice notes — keep the client informed and your internal record complete. Five seconds in the van replaces 10 minutes of phone tag.

Bill at milestones by combining a progress update and an invoice into one action. Cash flow stays healthy without chasing work.

Log the days worked and materials bought as a job runs, get warned before you burn the budget, and see estimated vs actual profit when it is done.

When a client asks for extra work, variations are how you capture and price it cleanly — without disputes, and without giving work away.

Scope changes go both ways — extra work added, or originally-quoted work removed. Both are handled as variations you measure, with the engine pricing them at your rates.

Four reports plus a tax summary show you where money leaks: variance, scope creep, conversion, and labour productivity. Here is what each one tells you and what to do about it.

Connect Xero or QuickBooks Online so your invoices and payments flow through to your ledger automatically — and keep the CSV export for when you want to do it by hand.

Surfacely runs on a subscription. This article covers the plan tiers, what each includes, how to upgrade, and how billing works.

Your logo, brand colour, contact details and company name appear on every quote, proposal, invoice, crew brief, and client portal. Set them once and they apply everywhere.

The Free plan starts with 5 buildings (a lifetime total). Win a job — or just reach the limit — and we'll extend you to 10, free. Here's what counts and what happens at each wall.

Surfacely limits how many devices a user can be signed in on at once. Here's how it works, the limits per plan, and what to do if you're unexpectedly signed out.

Surfacely automatically sends a thank-you and follow-up sequence when a project is completed. Here's how it works and how to control it.

Surfacely works across Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, and Canada. Currency, units, tax labels, and terminology adapt to your location automatically.

Pick exactly which alerts reach you and how — the in-app bell, email, or a push to your phone. Everything's on until you turn it off.

Surfacely generates the right invoice at the right time, numbered in sequence per project, with clean financial tracking.

Stripe, bank transfer, cash, or cheque — every payment method is tracked the same way, and the financial picture updates instantly.

Surfacely checks every invoice daily. When one goes past due, it reminds the client for you — politely, on a schedule that works.

Connect Stripe once and every invoice gets a Pay button. Clients pay by card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay — funds land in your bank automatically.

From scoped assessments, Surfacely generates a locale-correct safe work plan in seconds — saving hours per job and keeping your crew legally covered.

Every painter signs the safety brief on their phone in 20 seconds. No paper forms, no lost signatures, everything timestamped.

Completion is the step painters most often skip. Surfacely's wizard makes it 60 seconds — and kicks off the drip that turns one-time clients into repeat work.

Invite your estimators, admins, and painters with the right level of access. Surfacely's role system keeps sensitive screens out of the wrong hands.