Specifications & submittals

When a client needs to choose finishes, fixtures, or material packages, you use Selections — a project's own tab for the open choices your client still has to make. Each selection is one decision (say, "Kitchen countertop") with one or more options. You prepare the options and release them for the client to approve or decline.

Selections live on their own tab, not inside a record — it's where every open choice on a project is tracked, separate from the numbers you've already committed.

Open the Selections tab

1. Open the Project, then go to its Selections tab.
2. You get a board (a column per section — Kitchen, Baths, Exterior) and a list view; switch between them with the toggle on the right. The search box filters by title or number.

Create a selection

1. Click New Selection in the top right, or Add selection inside a board column to drop it straight into that section.
2. Give it a Title and pick its Group. Groups organize the selection board; they do not add budget items.
3. Click New Option for a cost item, or New Option Group for a package of cost items. Add names, descriptions, costs, prices, and photos. You can save an unfinished draft, but price its options before releasing it.
4. Enable Allow multiple selections if the client may approve more than one option. Set a Due date if needed.
5. If the project has an allowance on an approved client agreement, the Allowance picker lets you associate the decision with it. A draft allowance in the budget is not eligible yet. Without an allowance, approved choices go to the budget's Selections group.
6. For pre-contract decisions, Exclude from approved budget adds the approved choices to the estimate without committing their approved amounts until the final agreement is signed. Allowance-linked decisions cannot use this setting.
7. Click Save to save your changes. Opening or closing the form alone does not save a selection.

To add or replace an option photo, click its image area to browse, or drag one image file onto it. Hovering shows Add image or Change image; a file drag highlights the target. Save the selection to keep the change. Approved selections cannot be edited.

Send it to the client

1. Click Release to send the selection to the client's portal (they get a magic link — no password needed).
2. The client opens a full-screen review, picks the allowed option or options, and clicks Approve selection — or Decline. Drafts you haven't released yet stay hidden from them. Clients review and discuss the options; they do not edit them.
3. Need to talk an option through? Open Discuss in a released selection. The client can open Discuss options from the review page.
4. If the client declines, edit the selection and release it again. Saving changes returns it to Draft and withdraws its old approval links; the new release supplies fresh links.

Track the approved choices

Once the client approves, the chosen items or entire option groups are added to the budget. With an allowance, they appear beneath that allowance alongside its remaining balance. Without an allowance, they appear in the Selections budget group. Unchosen options do not create budget rows. The approval is recorded automatically; there is no separate Create client agreement action or additional signature step in this workflow. Approved selections are read-only.

Reuse a set of selections

Click a board group's heading to open its editor. Use Save this section as a group to save that section's selections, or choose an existing saved group to add its selections to the section. A section must contain selections before it can be saved as a reusable group.