Job brief from messy notes
Turns the emails, RFQ notes and drawing markups behind an order into one brief: what is agreed, what is only asked for, and what to confirm before quoting.
Updated September 17, 2026 · Operations · In the $149 pack
What you get
A one-page job brief with sourced scope, a status against every line, the blocking questions, and a clarification email ready to send.
What you need to hand
- The source material as you have it: pasted emails, an RFQ or PO, notes off a drawing or spec, a call transcript, an earlier quote
- A job, order or customer reference, and roughly when each source was written
- What you want to do next: quote, schedule the run, order material or decline
- Any date the customer has stated, and who stated it
- Optional: your standard inclusions and exclusions, usual units, and a short note about how your business works
How you might ask
Here is the customer's RFQ email, my notes from the call on Tuesday, and a later message where they add 200 units in a different finish. Turn it into a job brief and tell me what I need to confirm before I quote.
Worked example: Eighty-four bays, three emails, one unverified slab
An authored, fictional illustration so you can see the shape of the result. Not a customer outcome.
Input
Synthetic order N-2041. Buyer email from Harbor Foods: supply and install 84 bays of selective pallet racking, 12 ft uprights, three beam levels, in their new 12,000 sq ft warehouse. Wire decking, the mezzanine and any guard rail are excluded. Site note: the slab thickness and PSI have not been confirmed, and the anchor specification depends on them. Later buyer message: ‘Could you price wire decking as well? We would love the building live before November 6.’ No PO covering decking and no agreed install date are supplied.
Illustrative result
- Draft order brief N-2041: 84 bays of selective pallet racking, 12 ft uprights, three beam levels, supplied and installed. Wire decking, the mezzanine and guard rail remain outside the supplied baseline scope.
- Before a firm quote: get the slab thickness and PSI, or a core test, and confirm the anchor specification. Keep any resulting anchor or engineering cost unresolved until that is known.
- Buyer clarification: ‘Do you want wire decking quoted as a separate option? We also need the slab figures before we can confirm price, anchor spec and whether November 6 is achievable.’
Checks before using
- Wire decking is a request, not a line on a purchase order.
- November 6 is the buyer's preference, not a committed install date.
- No anchor specification, engineering fee or slab condition has been invented.
- Confirm the lead time from the racking manufacturer before repeating any date back to the buyer.
Get the full instructions
This is step "What is the customer actually ordering?" in the "From enquiry to paid invoice" pack: six connected skills that carry an order from enquiry to paid invoice, each with a worked example. One payment of $149 USD, delivered as a ZIP you keep. Works with your own ChatGPT account.