From a photo on site to a paid invoice: the TradeOff workflow

Most estimating tools do one job. You measure in one place, price in a spreadsheet, and chase payment somewhere else entirely — re-keying the same numbers three times and losing an evening to it.

TradeOff was built to be one joined-up flow instead: Snap → AI Takeoff → Estimate → Bill. Here's how a job actually moves through it.

1. Snap — start from a photo, on site You don't need to be back at the office to get going. Open a job on your phone, tap Snap a photo, and point the camera at a drawing's schedule or legend. TradeOff's AI reads the quantities straight off the photo and drops them into your estimate — no squinting at a PDF on a tiny screen, no writing quantities on the back of a fag packet to type up later. It's the difference between "I'll price that tonight" and "priced before I've left site."

2. AI Takeoff — let the drawing do the measuring Back at a laptop or tablet with the full set? Upload a PDF or scanned plan and hit Run AI takeoff. In one pass, TradeOff: detects the scale from the title block (e.g. 1:100), extracts quantities from schedules and legends, auto-counts repeated symbols — sockets, doors, lights — across the sheet. It's a fast first pass, not a black box. Every number is yours to review, tweak and sign off before it goes anywhere. A takeoff that used to eat half a day is done in minutes.

3. Estimate — priced to your rates, and your region Extracted quantities flow straight into your estimate and price up from your own rate library. New to it? Load a starter rate pack for your trade — electrical, plumbing, groundworks, carpentry, plastering, painting, flooring, brickwork and more — then tune the rates to how you actually price.

Two things quietly save your bacon here:

Regional pricing:

Set your region and rates localise automatically — because London rarely runs at the national average, and your quotes shouldn't either.

Benchmark warnings:

If a line is priced outside the typical range for your area, TradeOff flags it in amber before you send. A quiet second pair of eyes that catches the fat-finger £45 that should have been £450.

4. Bill — get it out, and get paid When the work's underway, the same job becomes your progress billing. Build a Schedule of Values, set the % complete and your retention, and TradeOff works out what's due this application.

Then send a professional Application for Payment as a branded, read-only link — no login needed for your client. It's ready for the way UK subbies actually invoice:

CIS deductions and VAT domestic reverse charge handled, clients can pay by card or bank transfer, one click to sync a draft invoice to Xero, and a status timeline that shows you when it's been Sent → Viewed → Approved → Paid.

One job, one flow That's the whole point. The photo you took on site becomes the takeoff, which becomes the estimate, which becomes the invoice — without re-typing a single quantity. Measure once, price once, get paid.

Every account comes with a demo project already set up, so you can run the full Snap → Takeoff → Estimate → Bill loop in a couple of minutes before you touch a real job. It's free, and it doesn't count against your project limit.

Try it free No card required. Built for UK subcontractors.

[Start free → https://tradeoff.blueshuckconsulting.com]