Notes & exclusions

Two different things live under similar names in Quote Comparison, and it's easy to reach for the wrong one.

Cell notes

A cell note (C) is a working comment on a single cell — a call-out on one subcontractor's price for one line, attached to that cell specifically. Use it for anything about that particular number: a caveat the sub mentioned on the phone, a reminder to confirm something before you rely on it, a reason a figure was plugged. See Enter quotes for where Add note sits among the other cell modes.

A quote's exclusions

An exclusions list belongs to the whole quote, not one cell. It's where you record, item by item, what that subcontractor has told you they don't cover — the things you'll need to price elsewhere, chase further, or flag before the tender goes out.

There's no "exclude" cell mode. If a sub has excluded something, it goes on their exclusions list, not into an individual cell — the cell for that line just stays whatever it actually is: empty, Include, or a real price for a narrower scope than the ledger line describes.

Keeping the two straight

A cell note answers "what's going on with this number." An exclusion answers "what has this subcontractor said they won't do." A tender with clean quotes might carry exclusions on nearly every sub and cell notes on almost nothing, or the other way around — they're independent records, and neither substitutes for the other.

These both live separately from the tender's own Clarifications & Exclusions, where you write the exclusions and clarifications that go out with the submission itself — see Clarifications & exclusions. A sub's exclusions list is what they've told you; the tender's Clarifications & Exclusions is what you're telling the client.

A habit worth building

Write the exclusion down the moment a sub says it, not when you get around to tidying up before submission. A verbal "we don't do the cutting for that" on a phone call is easy to forget by the time you're comparing five quotes on the same trade a week later — and it's exactly the kind of gap that shows up as a scope hole after the job is won, not before.