Build the proposal in five blocks: a short cover letter, a scope written as inclusions you can point to on the drawings, clarifications that state your assumptions, exclusions that name what the price leaves out, and payment terms. AI drafts all five from your estimate notes, but the estimator owns every figure.
Commercial clients compare proposals line by line, so the gaps between two of them become the argument later. A scope that says "electrical installation as per drawings" wins nothing and protects nothing. The fix is wording specific enough to defend, plus a firm rule that the assistant drafting it never touches the figures.
Five blocks, five different jobs
Each block answers a different question from the reader, and each fails in its own way. Mixing them is a common cause of a proposal that reads well and protects nobody.
| Block | Its job | The reader's question | How it usually fails |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover letter | Gives price, programme and what is unusual, on one page | Do they understand our job? | Generic praise, with no price or dates |
| Scope | Lists what you will install, by system, quantity and drawing reference | What exactly am I buying? | "As per drawings" |
| Clarifications | States the assumptions the price rests on | What would change this price? | Buried in small print, or missing |
| Exclusions | Names what the price does not include | What will I pay someone else for? | Contradicts the scope |
| Payment terms | Says when you are paid, and how long the price holds | When do I pay, and what if it changes? | Copied from an old proposal |
Scope and exclusions are where disputes live. A client who thinks the data containment was included will say so in month three, and "as per drawings" will not settle the argument, because the drawings show things your price never covered. The clarifications block does a quieter job: it makes the price conditional, in writing, on the things you can't control.
The job we'll write for: one office floor, sixty desks
Here the client is a tenant fitting out a single office floor for 60 desks, and the estimator has priced nine sections. Everything here is illustrative. The drawing schedule lists sheets E-101 to E-108 at revision C. The programme is 12 weeks on site, in normal working hours.
| Section | Description | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Floor distribution board, sub-main from the riser, final connections | $11,800 |
| 2 | Lighting: 96 recessed LED panels and 14 pendants, with presence-detection controls | $27,400 |
| 3 | Small power: 84 double socket outlets and 12 floor boxes | $23,900 |
| 4 | Data containment and 108 back boxes (cabling by others) | $14,200 |
| 5 | Emergency lighting: 38 luminaires and signs, tested and commissioned | $9,600 |
| 6 | Fire alarm interface: containment and power supplies only (devices by others) | $4,100 |
| 7 | Mechanical connections: 14 isolators and final connections to units and fans | $6,300 |
| 8 | Testing, certificates and operation manuals | $5,200 |
| 9 | Preliminaries: supervision, welfare, temporary lighting and power, waste | $7,700 |
| Lump sum | $110,200 | |
| Provisional sum: out-of-hours working, drawn only on instruction | $3,500 |
The nine sections add up to $110,200, and the provisional sum takes the most the client could pay to $113,700. Those two figures, and every quantity above, are the estimator's. The assistant's job is to turn this table into sentences.
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Buy nowWriting the scope as inclusions you can point at
A good scope line has a verb, a quantity, a drawing reference and a revision. Compare these.
Before: Supply and install lighting as per drawings.
After: Supply, install, connect and test 96 recessed LED panels and 14 pendant fittings as shown on E-103 rev C, with presence-detection controls as shown on E-104 rev C.
The second version can be checked against a sheet, and if the client later adds a pendant it is obvious that the count has changed. It's also the version an assistant writes well, provided it is boxed in. The drawing schedule for this job is E-101 distribution, E-102 single line diagram, E-103 lighting layout, E-104 lighting controls, E-105 small power, E-106 containment and data, E-107 emergency lighting and fire alarm interface, and E-108 mechanical connections, all at revision C.
You are drafting the SCOPE block of an electrical contractor's proposal. Use ONLY
the estimate table and drawing schedule below. For each section write one or two
sentences starting with the right verb (supply, install, connect, test), then the
quantity, the drawing sheet and the revision. Copy every quantity exactly. Where the
estimate says "by others", say so. If a section has no drawing reference, write
[DRAWING?]. Add nothing that is not in the table, and do not state compliance with
any specification or standard.
Estimate: [paste the table]
Drawing schedule: [paste the sheet list with revisions]A first pass (illustrative) might come back like this for the first few sections.
1. Supply, install, connect and test a floor distribution board and sub-main from the riser, as shown on E-101 and E-102 rev C.
2. Supply, install, connect and test 69 recessed LED panels and 14 pendant fittings (E-103 rev C) with presence-detection controls (E-104 rev C), all in accordance with the specification.
3. Supply, install, connect and test 84 double socket outlets and 12 floor boxes (E-105 rev C).
4. Supply and install data containment and 108 back boxes (E-106 rev C). Cabling by others.
Two slips are worth the price of the exercise. Item 2 says 69 panels where the estimate says 96, which is transposed digits of the kind that survive a quick read. And "in accordance with the specification" appeared despite the instruction, which matters because it commits you to every clause of a document you may not have priced against. If you did price to specific sections, name them; if not, delete the phrase. Then check each "by others" in the scope against your exclusions, because that is where a contradiction usually starts.
An exclusion sweep: let the assistant ask what the client will assume
Estimators know what they left out, which is exactly why they're poor at listing it. The client's surveyor doesn't know, and will assume. Turn the assistant into that surveyor and make it ask questions rather than write answers.
Below is the scope of an electrical proposal for an office floor fit-out and the
list of drawing sheets. Act as the client's quantity surveyor. List 12 things the
client might reasonably assume are included but the scope does not mention, most
costly first. Phrase each as a question to the estimator. Do not answer them.Back come twelve questions (illustrative). The estimator answers each in one of three ways: price it in, exclude it, or turn it into a clarification. Six of them might go like this.
| Question the assistant raised | Estimator's decision | Wording that goes in |
|---|---|---|
| Who chases walls and floors and makes good? | Exclude | Builder's work in connection, including chasing, cutting and making good of walls, floors and ceilings, is by others unless shown on the drawings. |
| Is fire stopping to our penetrations included? | Include for our own services | Fire stopping to penetrations made for our own services is included. |
| Who provides access equipment for high-level work? | Exclude | Access equipment above [height] is by others. |
| Are utility or network operator charges included? | Exclude | Utility connection charges, and any reinforcement the network operator requires, are excluded. |
| Who cuts ceiling tiles around fittings? | Exclude | Cutting and replacing ceiling tiles is by the ceiling contractor. |
| What if hazardous materials turn up? | Exclude, and clarify | Surveys, removal and treatment of hazardous materials are excluded. Hidden conditions will be priced as a change. |
The decision column belongs to the estimator alone, since each answer moves money. "Include" means going back to the estimate and pricing it, which is the useful discovery: one of the twelve can turn up a cost that was never in the lump sum, and that is the point of asking. The wording column is where the assistant helps again, by turning each decision into a sentence in the same register as the rest of the document. Then have it end the exclusions with a catch-all, "any item not described in the scope", while remembering that a catch-all can't replace the list.
If the sweep reveals gaps on the estimating side rather than the wording side, using ChatGPT to check bids covers a similar review of the numbers, and fitting allowances and provisional sums covers how to handle the items that can't be priced yet, like the out-of-hours working here.
Clarifications: the assumptions the price rests on
Clarifications make the price conditional on things you can't control, and each one should say what happens if the assumption fails. While pricing, the estimator kept a scrappy list: "ceilings open first fix, landlord gives riser power, 12 wks, normal hours, E-series rev C". Give that list to the assistant and ask for numbered clarifications with a consequence sentence for each, using nothing that isn't in the list. The result reads like this.
- The price is based on drawings E-101 to E-108 at revision C. Later revisions will be priced as changes.
- Ceilings are open and floors clear for first fix. If access is not available when we are ready, waiting time will be priced as a change.
- The landlord provides a three-phase supply at the riser with enough capacity for the floor, and a permanent supply for commissioning.
- The programme is 12 weeks on site from a start date agreed in writing. Delays outside our control extend the programme and will be priced as changes.
- Work is carried out between 07:30 and 17:00, Monday to Friday. Anything outside those hours is charged against the provisional sum.
Check the output for assumptions that appeared from nowhere. An assistant likes to be thorough, so a draft may add "all materials will be delivered to a lockable store on the floor", which is reasonable and also a commitment someone else must honour. Keep it only if the estimator made that assumption. The test is simple: every clarification traces to a line in the estimator's list, and every line in the list ends up as a clarification, an exclusion or a scope item. Assumptions you'd rather have confirmed than state go to the client as questions before the price is final, and bid clarifications and RFIs covers how to write them.
Payment terms and validity, without improvising
These come from your own conditions or from the contract you are tendering under, checked by a solicitor (AI-drafted terms and conditions goes through what to have checked). The assistant's job is formatting and consistency. Here is the shape of the block for this job, with every figure illustrative.
10% of the lump sum ($11,020) is payable on order towards mobilisation and materials. Work done is valued monthly and paid within 30 days of each valuation. 5% retention ($5,510 on the lump sum) is held until practical completion. Variations are carried out only on written instruction and priced from the attached schedule of rates. This proposal is valid for 30 days from its date.
Compare it with the sort of line it replaces: "Payment on completion." That one costs you the whole job's cash flow, and a draft left to improvise can easily produce it. A carried-over figure is the other risk. Suppose the sample proposal you pasted in for style held 10% retention, and the draft kept it. On this job that would hold back $11,020 instead of $5,510, twice the cash, in a document that looks entirely ordinary. Percentages, periods and release dates are copied from your conditions and checked by the estimator before the proposal is issued, whoever or whatever drafted the sentence around them. The cure for the carry-over is cheap: replace the figures in your style sample with [x] before you paste it, and tell the assistant the sample is for tone only.
The same blocks on a smaller job: a retail unit refit
A retail unit refit is the smaller case: a sales floor and a stockroom needing new lighting, small power, a few data points and emergency lighting. The estimator's lump sum is $38,600, plus a $4,800 provisional sum for display lighting because the shopfitter hasn't chosen fittings yet. That makes $43,400 at most. The blocks shrink but don't vanish. The scope runs to six lines, the clarifications to three (landlord supply, access after the shopfitter's carcassing, a three-week programme fitted around the shopfitter), and the exclusions name the shopfitter's work and the display fittings. For payment on a short job, the terms might be 30% on order ($11,580), 40% at first fix ($15,440) and 30% on completion ($11,580), which adds back to $38,600.
The slip in this draft was about vocabulary rather than numbers. It called the $4,800 an "allowance" in the scope and a "provisional sum" in the terms. Pick one term and say in one sentence how the difference is settled once the fittings are chosen, because a client who reads two words will assume two arrangements. The figure check and the contradiction check take the same five minutes on a job this size, and they're worth it because small proposals get the least attention.
What the assistant never writes in a proposal
- Prices, quantities and percentages. They come from the estimate or your conditions. The 69 panels and the 10% retention above are what happens otherwise.
- Compliance statements. "In accordance with the specification" or "to the relevant standards" commits you to documents you may not have priced against.
- Claims about insurance, accreditations or experience. Include only what you can evidence, in your own words. A draft will happily turn a modest fact into a confident claim.
- Dates and durations. They come from your programme and your labour. The assistant doesn't know who is free in March.
- Terms on payment, retention, liability and warranty. They come from your conditions, checked by a solicitor.
The cover letter, for two different readers
Write the cover letter last, once the other blocks are settled, and give the assistant the finished blocks rather than your memory of them. For the tenant's facilities manager, who will live with the result, a letter in this shape works (illustrative).
Dear [first name], thank you for the opportunity to price the electrical installation for your new office floor. Our lump sum is $110,200 for the work described in the scope, with a provisional sum of $3,500 for out-of-hours working that is drawn only if you instruct it. We can complete in 12 weeks on site from an agreed start date. Two points deserve your attention: structured cabling and fire alarm devices are by others, and our price assumes ceilings are open for first fix. Clarifications and exclusions are on pages 3 and 4. The proposal is valid for 30 days. For questions, please contact [estimator's name] on [phone].
For a main contractor's buyer, who is comparing eight returns on one evening, the same facts shrink: price, drawing revision, programme, the three clarifications that move the price, and where the exclusions are. Ask for that version separately and check it as hard as the first. Most of what you delete from a draft cover letter is the same two kinds of sentence: empty praise ("we are confident we are the best choice") and blanket promises ("fully compliant with all regulations"). Neither is something the estimator has decided, and the second is a commitment.
The estimator's check: figures first, then contradictions
Ask the assistant to list every number in the draft, one per line, beside the sentence it came from (catching made-up figures in AI-drafted proposals has more tests of this kind). Then the estimator ticks each against the estimate and the conditions. It takes five minutes, and it works because you're reading a list instead of re-reading prose you half-know. For this job the reconciliation (illustrative) came out like this.
| Figure in the draft | Source | Estimate or conditions say | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| 69 recessed LED panels | Scope, item 2 | 96 | No: transposed digits |
| 14 pendant fittings | Scope, item 2 | 14 | Yes |
| 84 double socket outlets, 12 floor boxes | Scope, item 3 | 84 and 12 | Yes |
| 108 back boxes | Scope, item 4 | 108 | Yes |
| $110,200 lump sum, $3,500 provisional sum | Cover letter | $110,200 and $3,500 | Yes |
| 10% retention | Payment terms | 5% in your conditions | No: carried over from the style sample |
The second check is for contradictions. Give the assistant all four blocks together and ask it to quote any two statements that disagree or overlap.
Read the cover letter, scope, clarifications, exclusions and payment terms below
together. List every pair of statements that contradict or overlap, quoting both,
and say which blocks they come from. Do not suggest fixes. If there are none, say so.1. Scope item 5 says emergency lighting is installed "to all areas". Exclusions say "emergency lighting to the stair core is by others".
2. Cover letter says the proposal is valid for 30 days. Payment terms say it is valid for 60 days.
Both findings are real. The estimator decides which wording is right, edits the other block, and re-runs the check, because fixing one contradiction can create another. A proposal that survives both checks is still the estimator's document, with the estimator's name behind it. Everything the assistant produced was wording, and everything that carried risk was checked by a person against a source.
Keep your standard conditions and one proposal you are proud of in a Project (ChatGPT and Claude both offer them), but start a fresh chat for every bid. That way one bid's quantities and prices never turn up in the next one. If the proposal is won and the client starts changing things, writing the change order is the next document.
Proposal questions from electrical estimators
Should an electrical proposal list exclusions or just the scope?
Both. The scope says what you will do, and the exclusions name the things a reasonable client might assume are included. A closing line saying anything not listed is excluded is worth having but doesn't do the work of a specific list, because the client reads the list and remembers what it didn't say.
Can AI check my proposal against the tender drawings?
Partly. Given the drawing schedule and your scope text, it can flag sheets or systems that the scope never mentions. It can't reliably count fittings from drawings, so quantities should come from your own take-off. Treat its flags as questions for the estimator, who answers each one.
Where should payment terms and retention come from?
From your own conditions or the contract you are tendering under, checked by a solicitor, never from an assistant's memory or an old proposal. Let AI format and tidy them. Percentages, periods and release dates should be copied from the source and checked by the estimator before the proposal is issued.
How long should a commercial electrical proposal be?
As long as the job needs, with the first page doing most of the work. Someone who reads only that page should know the price, the programme, what is unusual and who to call. The scope, clarifications, exclusions and terms follow behind it for the people who check line by line.
Is it safe to paste a bid into an AI chat?
Bid prices and client names are confidential. Use a business plan, or a consumer plan with the model-training switch off, and replace client and project names with placeholders until the final document. Business plans for ChatGPT and Claude don't train on content by default, but the placeholders cost nothing.
Further reads
- How to Price Electrical Jobs: Build a Guide From Your Past Jobs With AI — Build a price guide from your own past jobs before you estimate.
- AV Proposal Software: Adding AI-Written Scope and Exclusions — The same scope-and-exclusions approach for a neighbouring trade.
- How Electricians Use AI to Count Fittings From Drawings — Counting fittings from drawings before the proposal is written.
- Copilot in Word: Draft Proposals From Your Own Files — Drafting proposals in Word from your own files.
- Custom Home Builder Proposal: Draft Allowances and Exclusions With AI — How allowances and exclusions work in a builder's proposal.
- AI Proposal Mistakes That Cost You the Job — General proposal mistakes that cost jobs, with fixes.
- Electrician Quote Template: Can AI Write a Domestic Quote You Can Send? — The lighter version of this process for house-sized jobs.
- AI Electrical Quoting Software: Build Three-Option Upgrade Packages — How to build three comparable packages for a panel or consumer unit upgrade: what quoting software and AI draft for you, and the checks before a quote is sent.
- AV Scope of Work: Draft It From Discovery Notes With AI — Number the discovery notes, let AI sort them into a requirements record, draft scope lines from confirmed items, then have the designer check the design.
- Fence Proposal Template: Materials, Gates and Permit Terms With AI — The parts of a fence proposal, a worked example from site notes to scope, a comparable materials spec, gate details, exclusions and a final check.
- Home Automation Proposals: Scope, Device Lists and Support Terms With AI — Draft the discovery summary, room scope, device list, exclusions and support terms with AI, and keep the compatibility checks in your own hands.
- Masonry Bidding: Review Plans and Specs for Scope Gaps With AI — A bid-review routine for masons: AI tables each requirement, flags who supplies and who installs, and turns gaps into RFIs, exclusions and clarifications.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: privacy defaults as published by OpenAI and Anthropic for their plans, and Projects availability on both (checked September and October 2026). Figures, quantities and terms in the worked example are illustrative.