Estimating & Margin Agent
The agent works across inquiries, quotes, job costs, and closed-job actuals: flagging under-margin bids before they go out, summarising quoted-vs-actual at job close, and feeding variance back into the next estimate.
Agent in Action
Margin loss compounds when quotes go out unchecked and variance is discovered too late. The agent connects inquiry, quote, job cost, and close-out in one continuous loop.
New inquiry or quote draft created
Quote checked against margin threshold and history
Under-margin bid flagged before release
Quoted-vs-actual summary generated at job close
Variance fed into next-estimate draft
Operating Model
Runtime Duties
This is the practical operating surface: the checks it runs, the work it performs, and the actions that stay governed.
Checks every quote against configured margin thresholds before release.
Flags under-margin bids with historical context attached.
Generates quoted-vs-actual summaries at job close.
Feeds closed-job variance into next-estimate drafts.
Builds weekly margin performance briefings for Commercial and Finance.
Quote margin against threshold and historical actuals.
Material pricing changes affecting open quotes.
Job cost accumulation against quoted margin.
Quoted-vs-actual variance by job type and customer.
Operational Scenarios
The point is not a smarter dashboard. The point is the moment between a gap appearing and the team being able to act on it.
A quote goes out at 12% margin when the floor for this job type is 18%.
The loss appears at job close — too late to fix the next bid.
The agent flags the under-margin bid before release and attaches three similar jobs that closed below target.
Material costs shift mid-job but the estimate is not updated.
Variance is discovered at close-out with no time to adjust the next quote.
The agent detects cost drift against the quote and adds it to the job-close variance summary for the estimator.
Focused Metric Impact
Zipdata agents are not generic metric coverage. Each one owns a focused process slice and is measured against the operating outcomes that process can actually move.
Checks every quote against margin thresholds and history before it leaves — not after the job closes.
Feeds quoted-vs-actual variance back into the next estimate so margin quality improves over time.
How It Is Operationalised
Behind every named agent is a workspace configuration: typed data, watches, feeds, tools, approvals, and memory.
Inquiries, quotes, job costs, material pricing, closed-job actuals, and margin history.
Margin threshold breach, cost drift, quote release, and job close events.
Margin alert, job-close summary, next-estimate feed, and commercial briefing.
Quote revision draft, margin update, variance log, and approval queue.
Runs Inside a Workspace
This agent is one program running against a shared workspace: connected entities, analytics, watches, feeds, tools, and approval policies. The same workspace can host several agents, each focused on a different process and metric pair.
See it live in your operation
We configure margin watches around your quote entities, thresholds, and job-close process, then show the first margin alert before we meet.