What must transfer
- The approved scope of work and exclusions, verbatim.
- Line items with quantities — the basis of the material order.
- The cost budget by category, as the baseline for job costing.
- Site photos, measurements and access constraints.
- Customer preferences and commitments made during the sale.
- Payment schedule and deposit status.
Why retyping is the enemy
Every manual re-entry between selling and producing is an opportunity to drop a line, mistype a quantity, or lose a verbal promise the salesperson made. The crew then builds what the job record says, the customer expects what the estimate said, and the difference is absorbed as unbilled work.
The handoff conversation still matters
Data transfer is necessary but not sufficient. Someone who was on the site should tell the production lead what is unusual about this job: the difficult access, the customer's schedule constraint, the thing that was almost excluded. Five minutes here prevents a callback.
Scheduling comes after, not before
Schedule the job once the contract is executed and the deposit condition is met. Scheduling on verbal acceptance produces crews standing in driveways, which costs more than the delay would have.
Close the loop on cost
Because the job inherits the estimate's budget, the variance at completion is calculable without any additional bookkeeping. That variance is the feedback signal that makes the next estimate better.