Why a service quote is written by hand

On the rental catalogue everything is calculated: you pick a device and dates, and the total appears. That works because a camera rented for four days is exactly the same thing for everyone. A service job is not. Two requests that look alike on paper can demand two very different days, and that is why the quote does not come out of a calculator.

What a quote contains

Two lines, kept separate, and that is deliberate. Labour first: the time spent on site, plus the time afterwards if you asked for an edit. Travel costs next, priced separately so you can see them. Within Lyon, travel is included and that second line disappears. Elsewhere it exists, and I write it by hand: no automatic mileage scale runs behind the scenes.

What no calculator could do

• Read a venue constraint. A fourth floor with no lift, a hall that only opens at six, an entrance five hundred metres from the car park: that is not a tick box, it is read in your text.
• Say no. A calculator never refuses: it prices. I look at my diary, at feasibility and at what you are asking, and sometimes I answer that it is not on. A frank answer beats a plausible total.
• Tell a requested option from a granted one. Ticking “aerial shots” is not an order for aerial shots: it is an intention, whose feasibility depends on the place and the permissions applying there that day. I check it before pricing.

The budget you state never pushes the quote up

That is the most widespread fear, and I understand it. The “maximum budget” field is optional, it enters no calculation, and it serves one purpose only: to let me propose something realistic rather than send you an off-target quote. If you would rather say nothing, leave it blank — it will not change my answer. What changes it is the text where you explain the project.

The estimate shown is not the quote

The page shows you an estimate while you fill in the form. It is there to spare you a nasty surprise, not to bind you: it knows neither your venue, nor the constraints you described, nor what I will find in my diary. Only the quote counts, and it arrives after your request has been read. Between the two there is no charge, no card asked for, no slot held.

There is nothing unusual about this way of working: it is simply the opposite of renting, where everything is calculated in advance because everything is identical. If you want to see what a fully automatic price grid looks like, the rental prices set out plainly show it without detour. And for an invoice in a company’s name, the invoicing and VAT rules are the same on both sides.