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Estimates

Several estimates on one job

One loss often needs more than one estimate. Wave keeps them together on the same job, sharing the job's customer, address and claim details, each with its own scope and its own total.

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One loss rarely fits in one estimate. A Cat 3 job can need water mitigation, mold remediation and a contents pack-out, and each of those is approved on its own timeline by its own person. Wave keeps every estimate for a loss together on one job. In these docs we call that the claim workspace. In the app, it's simply the job, and its switcher is labeled Estimates on this job.

Why estimates stay separate

Each estimate covers one kind of work. That is deliberate. Water mitigation, mold and asbestos remediation, repairs and contents are different trades with different approvers and different approval dates. Keeping them in separate documents lets you send the water estimate for approval on Tuesday while the mold scope is still a draft.

What the job shares, and what each estimate owns

These belong to the job, so you enter or fix them once:

  • Customer, address and claim details: carrier, claim number, cause of loss and water category live on the job's Overview. Every estimate reads them from there.
  • Files: photos, videos and PDFs live on the job's Files tab.
  • Drying log: the job has one drying log. It is AI-generated, and techs should verify readings daily.
  • Your Wave conversation: there is one conversation per person on the job, and it carries across all of the job's estimates.
  • Stage: the job's stage on the Jobs board. The job's first estimate moves it; later estimates don't.

Each estimate has its own rooms, line items, prices and total, its own lock, and its own change history. Comments from adjusters live on the share page for the link you sent them.

Adding another estimate

Wave never creates another estimate on its own. Two ways to ask for one:

  • Tap Wave's offer. When an estimate finishes, Wave may offer the next one the loss usually needs, with a button such as Start the Repairs estimate.
  • Just ask Wave. "Make a mold estimate for this job too."

Either way, a confirm box names the work and the cost: the new estimate uses one estimate credit. Choose Add estimate to go ahead. Your conversation keeps going, and the scope you already have stays exactly as it is.

Moving between them

With two or more estimates on a job, a small strip of dots floats at the bottom of the Estimates tab. The one you are on expands to show its name, such as Mold. Click another dot to switch. With one estimate, the strip doesn't appear.

When a message in chat could apply to more than one estimate, Wave asks Which estimate is this about? before it changes anything.

Exporting or sharing several at once

  • One PDF packet. In the Export dialog, under Include in PDF, each of the job's other estimates appears as Another estimate on this job. Tick the ones you want in the packet.
  • One link. Open Export from the Estimates tab, choose Share link, then tick the estimates you want under Estimates on this job.

The default is the estimate you are on, and nothing else. That is on purpose. Your mold scope may still be an unapproved draft while water is signed, and an unapproved number sent to a homeowner can't be taken back.

Two more things worth knowing:

  • A link's set of estimates is fixed when you create it. An estimate you add to the job next week doesn't appear on a link somebody already has.
  • Nothing on the shared page combines the totals. Each estimate shows its own total, named after itself. An adjuster should never read a mitigation total as the value of the whole loss.

See Share an estimate for how the audiences work.

On the Jobs board

The Jobs board shows one card per job, not one per estimate, and the card sits in the job's stage. See Jobs board.

Limits

  • Five estimates per job. Duplicates count toward the five.
  • Each new estimate uses one credit. If the job is full or you're out of credits, Wave tells you before anything is charged.
  • Duplicating is free. A copy made from Job actions (⋮) > Duplicate stays on the same job and uses no credit. See Duplicate an estimate.
  • Viewing is never gated. If your plan changes, you keep seeing every estimate you already built.

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