Before the estimate a builder needs to know the land: the address and the 911 address (new land often has none yet), who owns it, the electric, water and gas companies, whether a water meter is there or has to be bought, septic or city sewer, how far the power and water are from the house spot, what the ground is like, porches, size and budget — and the look the client has in mind. On a sales card, Project questions › Send questions makes a private link; Copy link, Email it or Text it from your own mail or phone. The client opens it on a phone or a computer, in your portal brand, and works through one short section at a time; every answer saves as they type, so they can stop and come back. The last section is Your style: exterior, kitchen, bath, flooring, fixtures and colours, each a set of pictures to tap — two if they're torn — with a line for anything specific. They press Send and you're told. Answer Not assigned yet for the 911 address and a task to help them set it up lands on your list. On the card you see Sent · Opened · Answered, the starting points their answers give (living area, building size, porch, budget, utilities, distances), See all answers, and PDF for a printable copy. On the estimate, Site, utilities & travel offers the lines their answers point to — a septic allowance, a power trench at their distance, a meter tap — and adds them only when you press Add. Exclusively post-frame and barndominium builders — the questions are the ones a barndominium builder asks before pricing land and utilities.
Also called: client intake form · project questionnaire · new client questionnaire · 911 address · utility questions · septic or sewer · style board · design preferences · pick your style · intake PDF
- 1Open a lead's card and press Send questions under Project questions. A private link is made with your current questions and style board.
- 2Copy link, Email it or Text it — the last two open your own mail or messages with the link written in; nothing is sent until you press send there. Open as client shows you their side.
- 3The client answers one section at a time: Your property, Utilities, The site, Your building, Budget and timing, Your style, then Check and send. It saves as they go.
- 4Choosing Not assigned yet for the 911 address puts Help <name> get a 911 address on the task list of whoever sent the questions.
- 5When they press Send to <your company>, the team gets <name> answered your project questions with the property and the starting points.
- 6On the card: Sent · Opened · Answered, the starting points, See all answers with their style picks, and PDF for the printable copy.
- 7On their estimate, Site, utilities & travel lists the lines their answers point to under From <name>'s answers; Add puts them on the estimate with one Undo.
- 8Change the questions in Settings › Client Portal › Project questions: reword any question, make it needed or not, stop asking it, add your own, and add your own pictures to the style board.
Tonya Sanders at Okie Barndominiums has every new client fill two PDFs before the estimate: one for the project — the address and the 911 address (often not assigned yet, so the builder helps set it up), the utility companies, whether a water meter is provided or has to be bought, gas or no gas, septic or city sewer, how far the utilities are, the dirt work, porches, size and budget — and one for design preferences, where she shows pictures ("do you like this or this or this") before picking fixtures. Adam then calls the utility companies to check the costs. Keith, 10-23: make it all digital so the clients don't have to come in, keep a PDF copy, and have the answers feed the project.
- Paper intake PDFs clients have to come in to fill.
- A 911 address nobody followed up on.
- Utility, septic and distance answers that never reached the estimate.
- Style preferences that lived only in a conversation.
