The Estimate tab in Synergist can be customised using filters to show specific cost types (Time, Materials, Purchases, Expenses) and controls to adjust detail levels, such as rolling up hours into days based on company or charge code settings. You can group and subtotal estimates at job or stage level, save preferred views for personal or company-wide use, and switch layouts quickly.

How to customise your estimate view

The Estimate tab on a job or phase can hold a lot of detail. How do you customise the estimate view in Synergist? You use the filter and view controls to show exactly the level of detail you need.

This is useful when you want to focus on a specific cost type, roll up details into summary lines, or save a preferred layout so you don't have to set it up every time.

Filtering by cost type

By default the Estimate tab shows all cost types. You can use the filter controls to show or hide any combination of:

Time
Materials
Purchases
Expenses

This lets you focus on the costs that matter for the task at hand.

Changing the level of detail

Alongside the cost type filters, there are controls that change how much detail is displayed.

Rolling up time estimates

Time estimates display in hours by default. You can roll these up into days using the Days option.

The conversion uses the "hours in a day" setting in Company settings. Individual charge codes can also have their own hours-in-a-day value, so different types of work convert accurately. For example, if on-site work is typically 10 hours per day and office-based design work is 8 hours, an estimate of 20 hours would show as 2 days for site work but 2.5 days for design.

Roll-up options are also available for materials and purchase/expense lines.

Grouping and sub-totals

Controls at the top of the estimate let you choose how estimates are grouped and sub-totalled.

Job-level options

At job level you can:

Show or hide phase sub-totals
Show or hide stage sub-totals (for two-tier jobs)
Change the phase description to display the phase type instead
Roll up all line detail into a single summary line per phase using Roll up details
Change the order of phases to your own sorting using Display order

Two-tier job options

Two-tier jobs have additional controls for stage-level detail:

None — removes the stage description line. You can still choose to display stage sub-totals.
Summary — shows a stage description line with all estimate lines listed beneath it, rolled up according to your other filter settings.
Roll up — shows a single summary line per stage. This is not compatible with the "show stage sub-totals" option, as they would duplicate the same data.

Saving and sharing views

Once you have the display set up the way you want it, you can save it as a named View using the Views button.

Save a view as your default and it will apply automatically when you open any estimate.
Views admins can save views for the whole company or for a specific user group.
Other users can save views for their own use only.

This means you can switch quickly between different layouts without reconfiguring the filters each time.

Tips

Save a simple rolled-up view for quick profit checks and a detailed view for estimating. Switch between them as needed.
Use the Days roll-up when discussing estimates with colleagues who think in days rather than hours.
Check your charge code "hours in a day" settings if day values look unexpected. These are set per charge code in File maintenance.