Start with amounts you can explain
A useful budget has a source for each line. Mark whether an amount comes from a written proposal, a selected product or an assumption you have entered. Do not blend the three into a single apparently precise estimate. Leave genuinely unknown amounts unresolved and identify the person who can help obtain them.
Separate the project from the product
A fixture price does not describe the full cost of installing it. Keep supply, delivery, preparation, installation and making good in separate lines where your documents separate them. For an allowance, write what it covers and whether its amount includes tax. Use the allowance reconciler to compare it with an actual selected-product amount.
Check for duplication and gaps
If a general contractor’s price already includes an appliance or subcontractor, do not add the same amount a second time. Check every line against the written scope. Make a separate list of missing items instead of assigning them a convenient zero. A zero should mean an intentional entered amount, not that a required cost has been established as free.
Choose and label your reserve
The budget planner lets you enter your own reserve percentage and tax assumption. It does not recommend a contingency or decide which items are taxable. In our illustration, a $50,000 entered base, 15% reserve and 5% tax applied to that entered base produces a $60,000 scenario. That is arithmetic, not a Calgary price or tax assessment.
Use the result as a conversation
Ask a contractor to identify exclusions, conditions and change procedures in writing. The federal consumer guide recommends comparing the same specifications and reviewing costs and taxes. Keep the budget alongside the accepted scope and revise it only when a decision changes an entered assumption.
Keep a current copy
Download your scenario or print the planner before discussing it. The download includes the entered assumptions and a list of unresolved questions. You can prepare an editable intake brief from the same fields, then decide separately whether to share it with HAUSE. Nothing is submitted by calculating or downloading.
Sources & further reading
Primary references checked October 20, 2026. Confirm the current requirements for your property and proposed scope.
Government of Canada: home renovations ↗Your next step
Turn the decisions into an editable room brief. Keep unknowns visible and take a copy into your next conversation.
Build your room brief ↗