Overview
Sometimes you notice a missed detail — a tile you meant to include, a trade that got left out — only after the estimate already exists. You have two ways to fix it, and which one to use comes down to how big the change is and whether you want to keep the estimate you've already built.
Small addition or correction — use the AI Assistant on the estimate. Your existing estimate stays intact.
Large or structural change — edit the Scope tab and regenerate. This replaces the existing estimate.
Best practice: refine the scope before you generate
The best results still come from spending time on the Scope tab before you generate the estimate. That's where you review what the AI captured from your plans, photos, or description and fill in the gaps — adding the trades, materials, and details you want up front produces a more accurate estimate and saves rework later.
Everything below is the recovery path. It works, but it's more work than getting the scope right the first time. See Reviewing Your AI Scope of Work and Scope of Work Prompting.
Option 1: Small additions with the AI Assistant
Use this when you need to add a missed trade, correct a quantity, or adjust a handful of line items — and you want to keep the estimate you already have.
Open the estimate and click the AI Assistant chat icon on the Edit Estimate page.
Describe what's missing and ask the Assistant to add it — for example: "Add wall tile to the primary bathroom, approximately 120 sq ft, mid-range finish."
Review the changes the Assistant proposes and confirm they landed in the right category.
The Assistant edits the estimate in place. Nothing is deleted and no regeneration happens, so your fees, markup, and manual line-item edits are preserved.
The Assistant works best on smaller, targeted requests. If you're rewriting large portions of the scope, use Option 2 instead — many small Assistant edits tend to give a messier result than one clean regeneration.
Option 2: Edit the scope and regenerate
Use this when the underlying scope itself is wrong — whole trades missing, quantities that need remeasuring, or a structural change to how the work is broken down.
⚠️ This replaces your existing estimate. Generating a new estimate from an edited scope deletes the current one and builds a fresh estimate in its place. Any manual line-item edits, fees, discounts, or markup adjustments you made on the old estimate are not carried over. KonstructIQ will warn you before it does this — read the confirmation dialog carefully, because the step can't be undone.
Save a copy first
Before you regenerate, it's worth keeping a record of what you had:
On the Scope tab, click Options → Download to save the current scope.
If the estimate has manual pricing work you'll need to redo, export it first — see Exporting an Estimate as a CSV File.
Make the changes and regenerate
Go to the project's Scope tab in the left navigation.
Click Edit Scope.
Make your changes — edit item names, descriptions, quantities, units, tags, and locations directly in the table; use the ⋮ menu on a category to Add Item or Add Category; or ask the Assistant for changes in plain language.
If a quantity needs to come off the drawings rather than an AI assumption, click the item and use Edit Takeoff — see Using the Takeoff Tool.
When the scope is right, click Generate Estimate.
Read the confirmation warning, then confirm. The previous estimate is replaced and a new one is built from your updated scope.
Scope tab vs. Summary Scope of Work
These two are easy to confuse, and mixing them up is the most common reason people take the long route unnecessarily.
The Scope tab is what the estimate is actually built from. Change it and you change the pricing — which is why regenerating is required.
The Summary Scope of Work box on the estimate's Info tab is the plain-language description the client reads. Editing it changes only what's shown on the estimate document. It does not affect line items, pricing, or anything downstream, and it does not require regenerating.
If you only need to reword what the client sees, edit the Summary box — see Editing the Summary of Work for an Estimate.
Troubleshooting & FAQs
Which option should I use? If you can describe the fix in a sentence or two, use the AI Assistant. If you'd be asking it for more than a few changes, edit the scope and regenerate instead.
Can I regenerate without losing my estimate? No. Generating from an edited scope always replaces the existing estimate. Download the scope and export the estimate first if you need a record of either.
I get an error when adding a trade through the Assistant. Try a smaller, more specific request — one trade at a time, with quantity and finish where you can. Repeated failures usually mean you've hit the Assistant's context limit; duplicating the project gives you a clean chat history to work from.
The Assistant added the item to the wrong category. Ask it to move the item, or change the category manually in the estimate editor.
A whole trade is missing from the scope. Open the Assistant on the Scope tab and run Show page-to-trade map first. If the trade shows Primary: None, your drawings may not cover it — add the items manually or upload the missing sheets.
I only need to change what the client sees. Edit the Summary Scope of Work box on the Info tab. No regeneration needed.
Quick Reference
Before generating: refine everything on the Scope tab — the cheapest place to catch a missed trade.
Small addition, keep the estimate: Edit Estimate → AI Assistant → describe the missing item with quantity and finish.
Large change, rebuild the estimate: Scope tab → Options → Download (save a copy) → Edit Scope → make changes → Generate Estimate → confirm the warning.
⚠️ Regenerating replaces the existing estimate. Manual edits, fees, and markup on the old estimate are lost.
Client-facing wording only: estimate → Info tab → Summary Scope of Work.