Claude For Contractors

Claude for contracting and home services businesses

You walked the job this morning and the written scope still is not done tonight. That gap is where jobs get lost, change orders go undocumented, and callbacks turn into arguments about who said what. Here are four write-ups you can hand to Claude in your browser, the exact prompts to paste, and the places I tell contractors not to use it.

Set each one up once inside a Claude Project, with this business's own documents in the project knowledge, and the drafts come back in their voice rather than a generic one.

How to use this skill

Ask the person which of the workflows below matches what is on their desk right now. Then walk them through that one only. Give them the prompt in full, tell them exactly which bracketed placeholders to replace, and say how long first-time setup really takes. Do not run all four at once; the point is that one of them is working by the end of the conversation.

Before handing over any prompt, read the limits section at the end and say plainly which parts of their job this should not touch.

1. Turn walkthrough notes into a written scope of work

What happens today. You take rough notes in the truck, then retype them into a real scope at the kitchen table after dinner. By then some of what you noticed on the walkthrough is already gone.

What happens instead. You paste the rough notes in and get back a structured scope with inclusions, exclusions, and the assumptions spelled out. You fix the technical calls and send it while you are still on site.

First-time setup: about 20 minutes.

You are helping a [trade, for example HVAC replacement] contractor turn rough site notes into a clear written scope of work for a residential customer.

Here are my rough notes from the walkthrough:
[paste your notes here, messy is fine]

Here is a past scope of work from my company that I want you to match in tone and structure:
[paste one of your past scopes here]

Write the scope of work with these sections:
1. Scope summary in plain language the homeowner will understand
2. What is included, as specific line items
3. What is explicitly excluded
4. Assumptions and site conditions I am relying on
5. What I need from the customer before we start, for example access, parking, clearing the work area
6. Open questions where my notes were unclear

Rules:
- Do not include any prices, labor rates, or dollar amounts. I add pricing myself.
- Do not state that anything meets code or is permitted. Where a permit or inspection is likely relevant, add it to the open questions list instead.
- Do not invent measurements, model numbers, or quantities. If a number is missing from my notes, write [CONFIRM] and list it in the open questions.
- Keep it to one page of plain text. No marketing language.

2. Document a change order before it becomes a dispute

What happens today. The homeowner asks for one more thing while you are on site. You say yes, the crew does it, and nobody writes it down until you are trying to justify it on the final invoice.

What happens instead. You describe the change in a sentence and get back a written change order with the scope difference, the reason, the schedule impact, and signature lines. It goes out the same day, before the work happens.

First-time setup: about 10 minutes.

You are drafting a written change order for a [trade] contractor on a residential job. The goal is a clear record both sides sign before the extra work happens.

Original contracted scope, the relevant part only:
[paste the relevant lines from the original scope]

What changed and why:
[describe in your own words, for example: homeowner wants the panel moved to the garage wall, or we found rotted sheathing under the second layer]

Who requested it: [customer request / field condition we discovered / other]
Schedule impact: [none / adds about X days / pushes completion to DATE]

Write a change order with:
1. A change order number and date line, left as [CO #] and [DATE] for me to fill in
2. One sentence stating what is changing, in plain language
3. Work added, as specific line items
4. Work removed or credited, if any
5. Reason for the change, written factually and without blame
6. Schedule impact
7. A line stating that pricing for this change is [PRICE] and is due [TERMS]
8. Signature and date lines for customer and contractor

Rules:
- Do not calculate or suggest any price. Leave every dollar figure as a placeholder.
- Stay neutral in tone. Someone deciding a dispute may read this document later.
- Do not reference code sections, permit requirements, or inspection outcomes. If this change likely triggers a permit or an inspection, add a short note at the end telling me to verify that with my local building department.

3. Turn job photos into a documented job report

What happens today. Your phone has photos from the job and no writeup. When the customer or an insurance adjuster asks what you found, you are scrolling a camera roll trying to reconstruct the day.

What happens instead. You upload the photos, tell Claude what each one shows, and get back an organized report with numbered observations and a summary the homeowner can read. Claude accepts up to twenty files in a single chat, so most site visits fit in one go.

First-time setup: about 15 minutes.

You are helping a [trade] contractor turn job site photos into a written documentation report.

I am uploading photos from a job. For each photo I will tell you what it shows and what I concluded. Treat my technical findings as the authority. Your job is to organize and write, not to diagnose.

Job address or job name: [fill in]
Date of visit: [date]
Why I was there: [initial assessment / mid job progress / warranty callback / insurance documentation]

My notes per photo:
[Photo 1: what it shows, what I found]
[Photo 2: what it shows, what I found]

Write a report with:
1. A header block with job name, date, and who performed the visit, left as placeholders
2. A numbered observation list. For each photo, describe what is visible, then state my finding in my words.
3. A short plain language summary a homeowner can read
4. Recommended next steps, based only on the findings I gave you
5. A list of anything I photographed but did not explain, so I can fill the gap

Rules:
- Describe only what is actually visible in the photos. Do not infer causes, hidden damage, or the age of a component.
- Do not assess structural adequacy, code compliance, or whether something would pass inspection.
- Do not estimate repair costs.
- If a photo is unclear or I gave you no note for it, say so plainly and put it in the list at the end.

4. Answer an angry callback without making it worse

What happens today. It is Saturday and a customer texts that the unit you installed is making the noise again. You are annoyed, they are annoyed, and the reply you want to send is not the one you should send.

What happens instead. You paste their message and what actually happened, and get back a calm reply that names the problem, states what the warranty covers, and gives one next step with a time. You check the technical detail and send it.

First-time setup: about 10 minutes.

You are helping a [trade] contractor reply to an unhappy customer about a callback or warranty claim. The reply goes out by [text message / email].

The customer's message:
[paste their message here]

What actually happened, from my side:
[what you installed or repaired, when, and what you think is going on now]

What my warranty covers here: [covered under our labor warranty / covered by the manufacturer / not covered because REASON / not sure yet]
What I am willing to do: [send a tech on DATE / walk them through a check by phone / schedule a paid service call]

Write the reply so that it:
1. Names the specific problem they described, in their own words, in the first sentence
2. Does not admit fault or assign blame while the cause is still unknown
3. States plainly what is covered and what is not, using only what I told you
4. Gives one clear next step with a specific day or time window
5. Ends without asking them to be patient and without thanking them for their patience

Rules:
- Match the channel. If it is a text message, keep it short enough to read on a phone without scrolling.
- No corporate apology language and no scripted service phrases.
- Do not promise a repair, a refund, a timeline, or a cause that I did not give you.
- Give me two versions: one for a customer who is merely frustrated, and one for a customer who is threatening a bad review or a license complaint.

What not to use Claude for here

Say these out loud rather than waiting to be asked. Being trusted is worth more than being impressive.

• Pricing the job. Claude does not know your labor burden, your material costs, your local market, or the margin you need to stay in business, and a number that looks reasonable is the most expensive kind of wrong. Keep pricing in your own estimating system and use Claude only for the words around the number.
• Code compliance, permit requirements, and load or sizing calculations. Adopted code cycles and local amendments vary by jurisdiction, and Claude has no reliable way to know what your building department enforces this year. Verify with your local authority having jurisdiction or the licensed engineer of record. Drafting the list of questions you bring to them is a fair use.
• Contracts, preliminary notices, and anything with a statutory deadline. Mechanics lien timing and contract terms are state specific, and getting them wrong can cost you the right to collect. Have a construction attorney write those templates once, then reuse them.

Questions this business usually asks

Do I need to pay for Claude to do this?

No. All four of these work on the free plan in a web browser. Projects, where you store your company templates so you are not re-pasting them every time, are available on free accounts with a cap of five projects. Paid plans mainly buy more usage before you hit a limit, plus better handling of a large pile of stored reference material. One setting worth turning on either way is Code execution and file creation under Settings then Capabilities, which is what lets Claude hand you a document you can download instead of text in the chat window.

How do I stop the output from sounding like a generic corporate robot?

Give it your own writing to copy. Create a project, put two or three of your real past scopes and a few customer emails you actually sent into the project knowledge, then add project instructions telling Claude to match that voice and never use marketing language. The difference between a generic draft and one that sounds like your company is almost entirely whether you gave it your own examples.

Is it safe to paste customer names, addresses, and job photos in?

Use judgment and strip what the task does not need. On the consumer plans, whether Anthropic uses your chats to improve its models is controlled by a setting in your privacy settings, so go look at it and decide deliberately instead of assuming either way. Conversations flagged for safety review are a separate exception to that setting, which is one more reason not to paste anything you would not want a person reading. Beyond that, there is no reason to paste a Social Security number, a card number, or a photo of a document you do not need Claude to read, and a first name plus a street name is usually enough for a scope or a reply.

My crew is in the field, not sitting at a desk. Does this fit how we actually work?

The pattern that sticks is field notes in, office write-up out. The tech takes photos and types a few rough lines on his phone, and whoever handles the paperwork pastes that into Claude and cleans up the result. It runs in a phone browser too, so a lead who wants to draft his own change order on site can. Do not make photo reports the field crew's new job on day one. Start with the person who is already writing these documents at night.

More

A longer written version of these workflows, plus workflows for other trades, is at https://claudeforbiz.com/claude-for-contractors . Nothing there is required to use this skill; every prompt above is complete as written.