Free man and van quote template, and how to fill it in

Two versions of the same quote. The PDF is for printing: take a few to a survey and fill them in by hand at the kitchen table. The Word file is for typing: it opens in Word, Google Docs and Pages, so you can fill it in on a laptop or your phone and send it as a PDF.

Make it yours once. Put your business name in exactly as customers see it on Facebook and Google, then your phone number, email and your cover. Save that as your master copy and never type over it. Every new quote starts as a copy of the master.

Give every quote a number, even if it’s just the date and the customer’s surname. When someone rings in March about “the quote you sent”, you want to find it in ten seconds, not scroll back through a month of WhatsApp.

Nothing on it is fancy, and that’s on purpose. A clear quote with the list and the access written down beats a lovely-looking one that leaves the shed off.

The addresses are the easy part. The boxes under them are the ones that decide whether this is a four-hour job or a seven-hour one: floor, lift, parking, the walk from the van, and anything tight on the way.

Fill them in for both ends. A ground-floor pick-up and a third-floor drop with no lift is a very different afternoon from the other way round, and the customer will only tell you if you ask.

The parking line earns its keep in towns. If it’s a permit area or a paid bay, write who sorts the permit and who pays for it. If you’re sorting it, the cost goes in the extras.

Waiting for keys is the one people forget. If the customer can’t get into the new place till two and you’re loaded by eleven, that’s three hours of you and your mate stood on a driveway. Write the plan on the quote, and what waiting time costs.

Write the list on the quote, or attach it and say so. It’s the line you’ll be gladdest of later. If the garage is on the list and the shed isn’t, there’s no argument on the day about the shed. It’s a fresh conversation with a fresh price.

The template has tick boxes for the garage, the loft and the shed because that’s where quotes go wrong. Ask about all three by name, every time, and tick what they said. Do the same for anything that needs taking apart, and anything heavy or awkward: a piano, a big American fridge, a gym.

Then the van and the crew. Write the van by name (a Transit, a Sprinter, a Luton), how many of you, and whether it’s one trip or two. A list that fills a Luton and a bit is two trips, and two trips is double the drive. If you’re unsure what fits, the Luton van guide has it by house size and by item.

Finally the hours you expect it to take. Even on a fixed price, writing your estimate down makes you do the sum properly instead of guessing the total.

The template splits the price into lines on purpose. Labour is the people, the van and the hours. Mileage is the drive from your yard to the pick-up, on to the drop and back home again, which is real diesel and real time even though the customer never sees it. Extras are everything that isn’t the move itself: dismantling, packing materials, a permit, ULEZ or a toll, a long carry.

Showing the lines does two things. The customer can see what they’re paying for, which makes the total easier to say yes to. And you can see what you’re charging for, which stops you giving the drive home away.

The example comes out at £359 for a local 2-bed, which sits inside the going rate for that job. If your own sum lands well outside the bands in man and van prices, something’s been missed, usually the loft or the stairs. How to work out each number, from the van loads to the stairs, is in how to quote a house move.

Tick fixed or hourly, and mean it. Fixed is easier to sell and puts the risk on you, so only do it when the list is solid. If it’s hourly, fill in the minimum hours and what each extra half hour costs, so nobody argues about the clock.

The template asks four things: how much, when it’s due, how they pay it, and the date after which it isn’t refundable. Fill in all four. A deposit with no cut-off date is an argument waiting to happen.

Keep it modest. A deposit is there to make the booking real and cover what you’d lose if they pull out late, not to punish anyone. In the example it’s £50 on a £359 job, with the balance on the day.

Put your bank details on the quote, or say plainly how they’ll get them. The fewer messages it takes to pay you, the sooner the date is really booked.

If you’re not sure your deposit and cancellation wording is fair, Trading Standards’ Business Companion site has free guidance for small firms on deposits, cancellations and fair terms. It’s worth half an hour before you send your first quote on the new template.

Terms nobody reads aren’t worth much, so keep them short and on the quote, not behind a link. Five plain lines beat two pages of small print, and a customer who has actually read them is a customer who doesn’t argue on the day.

The first line does most of the work. It ties the price to the list and the access you wrote down, so the shed that turns up on the day is a new price, not a freebie.

Fill in your real insurance amounts. If you’re not sure what your cover is or should be, the goods in transit insurance guide and the hire and reward guide go through it.

Change the wording to fit how you work. The template’s lines are a starting point, not legal advice, and you know your jobs better than any template does.

Put a date on it. Diesel moves, your diary fills, and a price you gave in March shouldn’t still be binding in July. Plenty of firms use two to four weeks, and the template adds “or until the date is booked by someone else”, which matters for Saturdays and the end of the month.

Send it the way they asked. From the Word file, save or export it as a PDF so it looks the same on their phone as it does on yours, then send it on WhatsApp, by email or by text. A photo of the paper version works too, as long as it’s sharp and the whole page is in the shot.

Send a line with it. Say the price, say it’s fixed for the list, and ask them to tell you now if anything’s missing. That one question saves more arguments than any term on the page.

And send it quickly. People asking for a man and van usually ask more than one, and the first proper price with a list behind it tends to get the job. A good quote at nine at night often loses to an okay one at lunchtime.

The template is the right tool at a few quotes a week. When it’s fifteen, the retyping and the sums are your evenings. That’s what we built Kwotly for, so here’s the honest version.

You get your own quote page, a link you put on Facebook, your Google listing and the back of the van. An enquiry comes in with the addresses, the date and what’s moving, and arrives priced at your own rates, with the van, one trip or two, the mileage and any ULEZ or clean-air charge worked out. You can price phone and Facebook jobs in it too.

You check it, change anything you like, and you’re always the one pressing send, by email or straight to their WhatsApp. The customer gets a link that opens on their phone and can say yes from it, and the price runs out on its own after a set number of days.

Plans are simple. Free is 10 quotes a month, Starter is £39 a month for 100, and Pro is £79 a month for 300 with your logo and colours on every quote. The pricing page has what else comes with each.