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Set a deposit, see the balance due on completion, and find out whether that deposit actually covers the materials you buy before day one. Every figure is worked in whole cents, and the schedule adds to the job total exactly.
The Numbers
$10,500.00 job
30% of the total
70% of the total
Materials: $3,200.00
This deposit is $50.00 short of your material cost. That gap comes out of your own account and stays there until the client pays. Run three jobs like this at once and it is your float, not theirs.
QuotingAI takes the deposit by card the moment the client signs — so the gap never opens.
Every row is exact cents. They add to the total, so the client can check your arithmetic.
| Payment | When | Share | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deposit | On signing | 30% | $3,150.00 |
| Balance | On completion | 70% | $7,350.00 |
| Total | 100% | $10,500.00 |
The Reasoning
A deposit is working capital, not profit. It pays the supply house, the permit, the bin and the crew's first days — the money that leaves your account before any of the client's money arrives. Spend it as profit and you have to find it again on Friday.
A signature with no money behind it is a maybe. A deposit is the point where the client stops shopping and your calendar stops being a guess. It is also the cheapest filter you own for people who were never going to go ahead.
A written schedule — deposit, draws, holdback — tells the client exactly when money moves and why. Clients pay faster against a schedule they agreed to than against an invoice that turns up as a surprise.
There is no universal right deposit percentage. There is a floor, and it is arithmetic: the deposit should at least cover what you spend before the client pays you anything.
Below that floor you are lending money. On a $12,000 job with $4,000 of materials, a 10% deposit hands you $1,200 against a $4,000 bill — you carry $2,800 of someone else's renovation until they pay. One job like that is manageable. Three at once is the month you cannot make payroll, on a book of work that looks profitable on paper.
That is the number this page exists to show you. Everything else here is ordinary arithmetic.
On a job that runs longer than a week or two, one deposit and one final invoice puts a lot of your cash in the middle. Progress payments tied to visible milestones — rough-in done, drywall up, fixtures set — keep the money moving alongside the work.
Leave a holdback for completion. It gives the client a reason to walk the job and sign off, and it gives you a clean end point instead of a punch list that never closes. Keep the milestones objective: something either happened or it did not.
Some projects also carry a separate statutory lien holdback that provincial law sets and releases on its own timetable. That is a different thing from the completion payment above — check how it works where you build.
What you are allowed to ask for, and what you must do with the money once you hold it, varies by province and by trade. Consumer-protection rules, prepaid-contractor licensing, new-home warranty programs and municipal permits all touch this, and they do not agree with each other. Contracts signed at the client's kitchen table can also carry cancellation periods that change when a deposit is really yours.
So set your standard deposit against your own material costs, then check it against your provincial consumer-protection rules and your licensing body before you print it on a contract. This page does arithmetic. It is not legal advice, and it does not tell you what your province permits.
A number on a quote is not money in the account. QuotingAI collects this deposit by card the moment the client signs the quote — same page, same minute, before anyone has to chase a cheque. The schedule you just built goes on the proposal the client reads.
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