In Quebec, a construction quote is not just a number at the bottom of a page. It is a regulated document: your RBQ licence number has to appear on it, your taxes have to be calculated correctly, and whatever you write becomes the basis of the contract if the client accepts. A lot of contractors send quotes every week, often with a spreadsheet and a Word template that has been floating around for five years.

Short answer: good quote software for construction in Quebec calculates GST and QST separately with no cascading, prints your RBQ licence number on every document, can be used from the job site on a phone, lets you export your data whenever you want, and shows its price without a mandatory demo. The rest (takeoff from plans, unit price libraries, CCQ payroll) depends on your size and the kind of contracts you sign. This guide gives you the criteria, the traps, a 30-second test for any vendor, and a decision grid based on the size of your company.

"Quote software": three tool families people confuse all the time

First source of bad decisions: three product categories are sold under the same word. They solve different problems and they do not cost the same.

• Estimating and takeoff tools: you measure on PDF plans, apply unit prices per work item, and get quantities and costs. This is the core of the estimator's job, mostly for new builds and larger projects.
• Quoting, invoicing and management tools: you start from your own templates, build the quote, send it, turn it into a contract and then an invoice, and everything stays linked to the client, the project and the hours. This is what most companies with 1 to 50 employees are actually looking for.
• Construction ERPs: accounting, payroll, project management, purchasing, subcontractors and cost control in one system. Powerful, slow to implement, expensive, and relevant past a certain volume.

The question to ask before you shop is not "which one is best", it is "is my problem estimating, or getting the quote out and following it through to payment?". If you are wasting time retyping the same descriptions and chasing clients who never replied, your problem sits in the second family, not the first. Our article "How to Write a Winning Quote That Gets Accepted" covers the document itself; here, we are talking about the tool.

The criteria that actually matter for a Quebec contractor

Forget generic feature lists. In Quebec, quote software is judged first on obligations. Here are the eight things to check, in order.

• GST and QST calculated separately, at the correct rates, with your registration numbers printed on the document.
• Your RBQ licence number automatically shown on every quote, contract and invoice.
• An editable template: detailed scope of work, exclusions, validity period, warranty, payment terms.
• A clean PDF with your branding, readable on a phone and on paper.
• Online acceptance or client signature, with the date and a trace of who accepted what.
• A real mobile app: view or build a quote from the job site, with photos.
• Real hours and costs tied to the project, so you can compare what you quoted with what it cost.
• Full export of your data, a French interface, and hosting you can name if a client asks.

Tax math: the fastest test there is

GST 5%, QST 9.975%. Both are calculated on the same amount, the pre-tax total. Since 2013, QST no longer applies on top of GST: the cascading calculation is gone. So $1,000 before taxes becomes $1,149.75 all in ($1,000 x 1.14975), not a cent more.

Take any software in a demo, enter $1,000 and look at the total. If you do not see exactly $1,149.75 with both taxes on separate lines, you just learned the product was not built for Quebec. Also check that your registration numbers appear on the document, and remember that GST and QST registration becomes mandatory once your taxable revenue passes a certain threshold. For that threshold and for edge cases, the reference is Revenu Québec and the Canada Revenue Agency, not your software.

What has to appear on your quote

The RBQ requires your licence number to appear on your business documents and your advertising. The exact list of documents covered and the required wording are published by the RBQ, so check them on its site. If your template forces you to retype it by hand every time, sooner or later it will be missing.

A good quote template covers at least this.

• A detailed list of the work, labour and materials.
• The price, with taxes shown.
• The hourly rate for any additional work.
• The approximate duration of the work.
• The warranty on parts and labour.
• Your licence number and those of your subcontractors.
• Other charges: travel, transport, waste disposal.

On signatures: in Quebec, the LCCJTI recognizes that a technology-based document can stand as a written one, as long as the signer can be identified and their consent established. A timestamped online acceptance, with the client's name and the exact record of what was accepted, therefore carries weight. For a large contract, still validate your process with your legal advisor.

The field: mobile, real hours, real costs

A quote that is never compared to the result is a guess you keep repeating. The real gain from software is not producing a PDF faster, it is being told three months later that your labour estimate was under reality on that type of job. For that, the time clock, the project and the quote have to live in the same system.

The same goes for your hourly rate. An hourly rate is built: wages, the vehicle, the tools, operating costs, overhead, then profit. It is not guessed. And it moves: collective agreement rates change periodically. If your price library dates from last year, you are quoting with stale numbers. Always confirm the current rate with the CCQ.

The 30-second test to put any vendor through

Five questions, five yes or no answers. A vendor who hesitates on any of them is telling you something useful.

1. Enter $1,000 on a quote: does the total show $1,149.75, with GST and QST on two separate lines?
2. Does my RBQ licence number print automatically on the quote, the contract and the invoice?
3. Can I export all my quotes, clients and invoices myself, today, without going through your support team?
4. Can I cancel next month, or am I signing for twelve months?
5. What is the exact price for my team size this year, and once I have three more employees?

Add a sixth question if the vendor is not local: do the interface, the support and the subscription contract exist in French? In Quebec, language obligations also cover contracts and business documents, so check your situation with the OQLF. A vendor with no French version puts you in a grey zone you do not need.

What no quote software will ever do for you

An enthusiastic salesperson will let you believe everything is covered. It is not. Three obligations stay yours, and no quoting tool handles them by magic.

• The CCQ monthly report, if you have employees covered by the construction collective agreements. It has its own deadline and late penalties that climb fast: confirm the current dates and rates with the CCQ.
• The T5018 contract payment reporting slip, if most of your revenue comes from construction: you have to report the payments you make to your subcontractors. The threshold, the form and the deadline belong to the Canada Revenue Agency, so confirm them there.
• Source deductions and government remittances, which belong to your payroll and accounting, not to your quoting tool.

Some construction payroll systems do produce the CCQ monthly report, and that is a genuine criterion if you have covered employees. But it is a different product category. Ask the question directly instead of inferring it from a feature page. The construction industry in Quebec is big enough for specialized tools to exist.

The traps that cost real money

Software built for the United States

Half-translated interface, taxes reduced to a single rate, American date formats, subscription billed in US dollars, support hours that are not yours, and no notion of RBQ or CCQ. Some of these products are excellent in their own market. That does not make them usable here without constant workarounds, and you are the one who pays for the workarounds in hours.

The disguised annual contract

The monthly price on display is often the annual price divided by twelve. You pay up front, you are locked in for the year, and a short free trial does not give you time to run a real job through the tool. Ask for the month-to-month price with no commitment and compare it to the annual rate. The gap is what the one-year commitment costs you.

Per-user fees that punish hiring

A per-user rate looks reasonable at three people. At twelve, it becomes a tax on your growth, and you start sharing accounts, which destroys any trace of who sent which quote. Always redo the math with the team you want in two years, not the one you have today.

Data you cannot get back out

Your quotes, your prices and your client history are business assets. Watch out for a common confusion: Law 25 governs personal information; it does not settle the portability of your business data. Your export is a product feature and a contract clause. Check it before you sign, not on the day you want to leave.

The warning signs to spot during the demo

Keep this short list open during the presentation. Every point can be checked live, in front of the vendor.

• No public pricing: you need a sales demo to learn the cost.
• A single configurable tax rate, or taxes calculated on top of each other.
• An RBQ licence number that can only be typed by hand in a free text field.
• No self-serve export of your data.
• A subscription contract that only exists in English.
• A free trial shorter than your normal sales cycle.

The real monthly price: the only fair way to compare

Compare costs over 24 months, not sticker prices. Over two years you see implementation, team growth and exit costs, which is exactly what a monthly price hides.

1. Take the listed price, multiplied by the real number of users you need, office and field, not just you.
2. Add implementation, configuration, migration and training fees.
3. Add the separately billed modules you actually need: signature, accounting, payroll, client portal.
4. Add transaction fees if you collect payments inside the tool.
5. Add the exit cost: what it takes to get your data out, and how many hours to rebuild your templates elsewhere.
6. Divide the total by 24. That is your real monthly price. Compare only that number.

Run the exercise on two or three finalists. The cheapest one on paper is not always the cheapest over two years.

Decision grid by company size

There is no best software in absolute terms. There is a good fit per profile, and a classic mistake per profile.

Self-employed, 1 to 3 people

• What you need: a simple tool that produces a clean quote with your RBQ number and the right taxes, turns it into an invoice and tells you who has not replied.
• What would be a mistake: buying an ERP or a plan takeoff module. You would pay for power you will never use and drop the tool within three months.

4 to 15 employees, residential and renovation

• What you need: quotes, contracts, invoices, projects, photos and hours in one system, with a mobile app your field crew will actually use.
• What would be a mistake: staying on the homemade spreadsheet. At this volume it is no longer a saving, it is a risk of forgotten invoices and unknown project costs.

15 to 50 employees, several crews and CCQ workers

• What you need: the same foundation, plus a real answer for payroll and the CCQ monthly report, plus serious roles and permissions.
• What would be a mistake: picking a standalone quoting tool and hoping it handles the CCQ. Plan either a construction payroll system alongside it, or a vendor that covers both.

General contractor, large contracts, public tenders

• What you need: estimating and takeoff on plans, a unit price library, subcontractor bid management, line-by-line cost control, and monitoring of public opportunities on SEAO.
• What would be a mistake: underestimating local expertise. Vendors established in Quebec for decades have proven price libraries and knowledge of the collective agreements that a newcomer does not have. For this profile that is often the right call, and it deserves a spot in your comparison.

If your starting question is broader than quoting, our guide "How to Choose Service Business Management Software: A Buyer's Guide" covers the general checklist, the questions to ask vendors and the migration plan.

Where ORYX fits, and where it does not

Let's be straight about it. ORYX covers the second family: quotes, invoices and contracts built from your own templates, linked to your clients, your projects, your tracked hours and your job site photos, with a CRM and a pipeline so you know which quote was opened and which one is going cold. French interface, mobile app, data hosted in Canada, platform designed for Law 25.

What ORYX does not do today: takeoff on PDF plans, trade-by-trade unit price libraries, CCQ payroll and the monthly report. If your number one need is estimating by the square foot on plans or producing CCQ payroll, a specialized tool or one of the established Quebec vendors will serve you better, and it is fine to put them in your comparison.

On price, everything is public: $127 per month for up to 10 employees, $327 up to 25, $727 up to 50, custom beyond that, in Canadian dollars, taxes extra. Every feature is included in every plan, only the employee limit changes, and there is no contract. ORYX is in pre-launch: there's a waitlist, and three free months for the first hundred sign-ups, no credit card. It is a simple way to test it on your real files before you decide.

Quote software that knows nothing about the RBQ, the QST or your job site does not save you time. It just moves your work somewhere else.