A takeoff is a way of going over a plan view, adding general items (allowances) and later replacing with exact icons. Follow the steps below for creating a takeoff with visual quoting.
Create Allowances
To start you will want to make some allowances for some general products. In this case I will create an allowance for in-ceiling speaker, television, and security camera.
You will want to make sure you set a category for each allowance. This will determine the icon set on the allowance when adding to the quote. More on creating an allowance here.
Add allowances to a quote
After we have created the allowances for the items we commonly quote, we can go and get started on a quote. Let's go to the Visual Design Quoting within the quote.
First let's add a floor plan (if you don't have a floor plan, you can still continue!)
Next, let's draw out the locations on the floorplan - if you don't have a floorplan, you can draw your own 😊
Now let's search for the allowances we created. You can either type in the allowance name, or just search "allowance".
Click the item you want to add, and click the "Click to Add" button
Now just click everywhere you want to add that allowance. When finished, you can click the
Replace allowances with products
After we have added all the allowances for the generic products to the visual quote, we can now come back and replace with exact items. This will give the option to replace one at a time, or replace all at once. Here, I will replace all speakers with Sonance VP64R speakers.
First select the allowance you want to replace
Click the replace button in the sidebar
This will ask you which item you would like to replace with
Choose if you want to replace in all locations, or if you just want to replace specific locations. (in the example below I turned off garage speakers to get weather proof speakers)
Remember, building the visual quote will show add the items into the appropriate locations (if you draw the locations) and will build your quote as you go.
