Flow 06·Company claim·airship, housecallpro

Estimate generation

What does the work cost? Translating the scope of work into materials, labor, and a sellable price. Most FSMs have basic estimating. Specialized proposal tools (Airship) focus on making this step fast and presentable.

BOM & pricing

User goal

Contractor needs an accurate cost estimate to protect margin. Homeowner needs a price that is clear, fair, and credible — not a rough ballpark that changes at billing.Hypothesis

Treehouse implication

Treehouse's BOM generation from the Edison scope is the key differentiator here — the estimate is derived from the scope rather than from manual price-book lookup. If the scope is accurate, the BOM is accurate, and the estimate is accurate. That chain — scope to BOM to estimate — is what makes remote quoting possible.Hypothesis

How competitors approach this

2 companies mapped. Click a company's "View flow" link to see their captured screens.

Company	What they do	What they automate	Contractor control	FSM relationship	Key strength	Key weakness	Treehouse implication
Airship View flow →	Pulls from the ServiceTitan price book to generate equipment-level pricing. Builds good/better/best option structure at estimate time. For HVAC: AHRI matching determines compatible equipment; for electrical: template-based.Company claimSource	Price book lookup, equipment option generation (HVAC: AHRI-based; electrical: template-based), good/better/best structure assembly.Company claimSource	Owner configures pricing and option structure. Tech selects from pre-built options. Margin and discount are configured per company.Company claimSource	Reads from ServiceTitan price book. Writes accepted proposal back to ServiceTitan.Company claimSource	No re-entry of pricing — reads directly from the ServiceTitan price book. Good/better/best structure reduces in-home presentation time.Company claimSource	Requires a configured ServiceTitan price book — if the price book is stale or incomplete, the estimate is wrong. Electrical pricing is template-based, not derived from a load calculation — less accurate than HVAC's AHRI matching.Hypothesis	Airship's estimate starts at the ServiceTitan price book. Treehouse's estimate starts at the Edison scope and BOM. That is a fundamentally different accuracy model — scope-derived vs. price-book-derived. For complex electrical jobs, scope-derived is more accurate.Hypothesis
Housecall Pro View flow →	Line-item estimating from the HCP price book. Standard FSM estimating — not specialized for good/better/best or complex electrical scoping.Company claimSource	Price book lookup, basic estimate assembly.Company claimSource	Contractor configures the price book and estimate templates. Line-item review before sending.Company claimSource	Native — estimate is created within HCP and lives in the HCP job record.Company claimSource	Fully integrated with the FSM — no separate tool needed.Company claimSource	Basic estimating — no good/better/best structure, no equipment-level intelligence, no scoping input. Contractors doing complex electrical work outgrow HCP estimating quickly.Hypothesis	A Treehouse-generated estimate that is more accurate and faster than HCP's native estimating is a reason to adopt Treehouse even if the contractor doesn't need remote scoping.Hypothesis

Treehouse read

What Treehouse owns, orchestrates, and defers to the FSM — plus six supporting questions that shape architecture decisions. All entries are hypothesis until validated internally.

Treehouse ownsCore IP or data that Treehouse controls and no partner provides.

BOM generation from the Edison scope. The material cost database that maps NEC-required equipment to current pricing. The margin engine.Treehouse internal

Treehouse orchestratesThird-party capabilities Treehouse coordinates but does not own.

Price book integration with the contractor's FSM (to pull labor rates and any custom materials). The good/better/best option structure assembly.Hypothesis

Stays in the FSMWorkflow or data that belongs in the contractor's system of record.

The price book is the contractor's property — Treehouse reads it but does not own it. Labor rates and overhead allocations stay in the contractor's system.Hypothesis

Differentiated intelligenceWhat Treehouse knows or computes that competitors cannot easily replicate.

A scope-to-BOM mapping that an electrician validates rather than builds from scratch. The accuracy of scope-derived pricing vs. price-book-derived pricing on complex jobs.Treehouse internal

Commodity infrastructureCapabilities that are table stakes — others have them too.

Material cost databases (wholesale pricing, distributor feeds).Hypothesis

Persists across the journeyData or state from this step that must travel to later steps without re-entry.

The priced BOM — material line items, labor hours, total cost, margin — persists from this step into proposal creation and into FSM writeback at job completion.Hypothesis

Contractor seesWhat the contractor-facing UI surfaces from this step.

A line-item estimate with Edison-derived items highlighted and contractor-added items distinguished. A total cost, margin, and customer-facing price. An option-structure view for good/better/best.Hypothesis

Happens automaticallyWorkflow events that fire without a contractor action.

BOM generation from scope. Material cost lookup. Total price calculation at configured margin.Treehouse internal

Human takeoverConditions that require a contractor or Treehouse team member to intervene.

Any item not in the material cost database. Any scope with non-standard labor requirements. Discount decisions on competitive bids.Hypothesis

Research detail11-field structured template: contractor workflow, information flows, product outputs, FSM read/write

User goalWhat the homeowner and contractor each need from this step.

Contractor needs an accurate cost estimate to protect margin. Homeowner needs a price that is clear, fair, and credible — not a rough ballpark that changes at billing.Hypothesis

Contractor workflowHow contractors handle this step today, with or without software.

Contractor takes the scope of work and applies material costs, labor rates, and margin. For simple jobs: lookup in a price book. For complex jobs: manual calculation across multiple line items. Many contractors still use spreadsheets or mental math.Hypothesis

Information entersWhat data flows in — from the homeowner, the FSM, prior steps.

From scope: circuit list, equipment list, labor steps. From price book: material costs per item. From the contractor: labor rate, margin targets, job-specific adjustments.Hypothesis

What the product doesWhat the software handles — based on evidence, not assumptions.

FSMs provide basic line-item estimating from a price book. Specialized tools like Airship pull from the ServiceTitan price book and generate equipment-level pricing automatically. Airship's good/better/best structure is built at estimate time.Company claimSource

Contractor must doSteps that always require a human decision or action.

Review the generated estimate. Adjust for any items not in the price book. Set the good/better/best option structure. Apply any job-specific discounts or adjustments.Hypothesis

Requires judgmentWhere automation breaks down and a licensed trade professional is needed.

Jobs with materials not in the price book. Labor estimates for non-standard configurations. Margin decisions on competitive bids. Equipment availability and lead time.Hypothesis

Product outputsWhat the step produces — data, documents, FSM records.

A priced estimate with line items grouped by option (good/better/best) or by category (materials, labor, equipment). Ready to become a proposal.Hypothesis

FSM read / writeWhat the tool reads from and writes to the contractor's system of record.

Airship pulls from the ServiceTitan price book. HCP has its own price book within the FSM. The estimate may be written back to the FSM job record or kept in the proposal tool.Company claimSource

Product strengthsWhat the best products in this step do unusually well.

Pulling from the existing price book reduces re-entry. Good/better/best structure at the estimate level makes it easier to present options at proposal time.Company claimSource

Product weaknessesWhere current products fall short or create new problems.

Price books must be maintained — stale pricing leads to margin errors. Complex jobs with many custom line items slow down the estimate significantly. Labor pricing is the hardest to standardize across different job types.Hypothesis

Treehouse implicationWhat this step means for Treehouse's product positioning and architecture.

Open questions

01How does Treehouse's BOM generation map to contractor price books? Does a contractor need a price book, or does Treehouse provide material costs?
02What is the typical margin of error in a Treehouse-generated estimate vs. a manually reviewed estimate?
03How does Treehouse handle jobs with materials outside the standard BOM?
04What pricing structure do electrical contractors prefer — flat rate, time-and-material, or option-based (good/better/best)?
05Does Treehouse's estimate need to sync back to the contractor's FSM price book, or is it self-contained?