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Blueprint Ledger
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Getting started

What Blueprint Ledger does, and the shortest path from signing up to a job you can track.

In short

Build an estimate, send it for signature, then track what you actually spend against it. Read this page once and the rest of the guides are chapters of that one loop.

Blueprint Ledger replaces the export-to-spreadsheet-and-reconcile routine with one place to build an estimate, send it, track what you actually spend against it, and show the client where the money went.

Every account starts with a 7 day trial of Premium. After that you can keep using the free plan, which covers 3 active jobs and 1 person. See pricing for what Premium adds.

The shape of the work

Most of the app follows one loop, and the rest of these guides are chapters of it.

  1. Build an estimate as categories and line items.
  2. Send it to the client as a proposal and collect a signature.
  3. Bring in what you spend, from a bank feed, a file, or a paste.
  4. Put each charge on the right category.
  5. Show the client a statement, and bill progress as you go.

You do not have to do all of it. Plenty of people use the estimate and proposal side and never connect a bank.

Your first job

Open Jobs and choose New job. You need a name and a client to start. Everything else, including the estimate itself, can come later.

A new job starts as a draft. Drafts are the proposal stage: there is no spending to track yet, so the page stays focused on the estimate. Once the client signs, or you approve it yourself, the job becomes active and grows the tabs for transactions, payments and project costing.

Tip

If you do the same kind of work repeatedly, build one job carefully and save it as a template. Starting from a template gives you the whole category structure with none of the actuals, which is most of an estimate already done.

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