Hank AI™

#What Hank Does

Hank AI™ is Jobkore's built-in chat assistant for contractors. He shows up in four places:

• Inside every estimate, invoice, and change order — Edit with Hank is a chat panel that edits the document live while you talk to it. He can add line items, set prices, move sections, flag allowances, update clients, set due dates, rewrite notes, and anything else the form lets you change.
• Inside field notes — select your notes and Hank turns them into a structured draft.
• In the app's help — Ask Hank answers your questions about Jobkore and your own account.
• Across the writing surfaces — notes, descriptions, payment terms, email messages. Hank polishes the prose without changing your meaning.

Hank works in two tiers. Most changes apply live — he writes them straight onto the form and you watch it happen, then tell him to adjust or back it out. The destructive and the consequential ones are proposed first, arriving as an Apply / Keep card you have to act on: removing a line item or a section, changing the client, setting your default labor rate, and adding a rule to his memory. Your job is review, not typing from scratch.

#What Hank Can Actually Change

Hank is not limited to writing descriptions. He has 26 tools on a document:

You can talk to him the way you would talk to someone sitting next to you with the laptop, rather than hunting for the right field yourself.

#Edit with Hank

Open any estimate, invoice, or change order and Hank sits beside the form. On a wide screen he is a panel on the right, opened and closed with Open Hank and Close Hank and resizable by its edge; on a phone he opens as a sheet from the bottom. The form stays where it is either way, and the chat keeps your draft text and scroll position when you close it.

In the panel, type what you want changed. Hank edits the form one tool call at a time and you watch the document update as he goes. Changes that apply live are saved the moment he makes them — there is nothing to confirm afterwards. Anything that would remove work or switch the client waits for you on an Apply / Keep card instead.

Things you can ask

• "Add a line for exterior paint, 2,400 sqft."
• "Move demo to its own section and rename the current one to Rough-in."
• "Set the client to Sarah Kim at 1412 Oak, and use the job address as the service location."
• "Flag the tile as an allowance."
• "Drop the framing line — homeowner is doing it."
• "Rewrite the notes in a friendlier tone and add gate access instructions."
• "Set the due date to two weeks from today."

Ask in plain English (or Spanish). Hank uses your trade's vocabulary — quarter round, ACQ 4x4, mitigation — and matches the structure your industry expects.

Voice, attachments, and field notes inside chat

The chat accepts more than typing:

• Voice It: tap the mic and describe the change out loud. Your voice becomes text in under a second.
• Attachments: drop a photo, PDF, or text file into the chat. Hank reads it and uses it in the edit. Common types: JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, PDF, plain text, CSV, markdown. Up to 25 MB.
• Field notes: stage one or more field notes in the chat. Hank loads their text, transcripts, and any photo or PDF content, then works from there. No re-typing, no re-uploading.

Conversation memory

Each document keeps its last 30 messages. Close the form, come back a day later, and the conversation is still there — every tool call is part of that history, so you can scroll back and see what he did and when.

30 messages are stored and shown to you, but only the last 10 are sent to the model as context. Scrolling back shows you what happened; it does not mean Hank still has it in mind. If something from earlier in a long conversation matters, say it again.

#The Daily Fair-Use Limit

Edit with Hank has a daily fair-use ceiling. It exists to stop a runaway session costing more than the whole subscription, not to ration the feature — nothing about it is tied to your plan, because there is only one plan and nothing in Jobkore is gated behind a tier.

How it behaves:

• You are warned in the chat panel when you have used 80% of the day's budget, so you are never surprised by it.
• If you do reach the ceiling, Hank pauses for the rest of the day and tells you how long until it resets.
• It resets every day at midnight UTC.
• Only Edit with Hank draws on it. Ask Hank, the Improve button, and building a draft from field notes are not counted against the same budget.

In normal use you will not meet it. It is set well above a heavy day of estimating, and the contractors who reach it are generally the ones leaving a chat running rather than the ones writing a lot of documents.

#From Field Notes to a Draft

Capture the messy side of a project in field notes: typed notes, voice memos, photos of scope sketches or spec sheets, forwarded supplier PDFs. Whenever you're ready, open the field notes list, check one to ten notes, and pick what you want to build: estimate, invoice, or change order.

Hank reads all the note content — text, transcribed audio, extracted photo text, PDF content — and returns a structured draft: sections, line items, and a notes block for exclusions, conditions, and site notes. Nothing is inserted until you approve it.

How Hank groups your scope

Hank auto-detects the type of project from your notes and groups the scope the way your industry does it:

• Whole-house remodel or multi-room interior: sections by room (Kitchen, Master Bath, Guest Bedroom).
• Single-room (one kitchen, one bathroom, one basement): all work under one section named after the room — no trade splitting.
• New construction, addition, or major structural build: sections by phase (Site Work, Foundation, Framing, Rough-In, Finishes).
• Exterior, landscaping, or hardscape: sections by area (Front Yard, Back Yard, East Elevation).
• Single-trade (roof replacement, HVAC swap, repipe, fence): sections by component phase (Tear-off, Deck Prep, Install, Flashing).
• Restoration / insurance (Xactimate keywords: mitigation, extraction, water damage, fire damage, mold): rooms as sections with Mitigation, Demolition, and Build-back line items — the structure adjusters expect.

Hank consolidates. A kitchen with 14 cabinet boxes becomes one line item: "Supply and install kitchen cabinetry," with model numbers in the notes. Subcontractor work is one line item per sub. Soft costs — permits, dumpsters, portable toilets, site protection, equipment rental, supervision, final cleaning — get pulled into a dedicated Site Services section at the top so general overhead stays visible.

Revising the output

The first draft almost never lands exactly right. Tell Hank what to change in the feedback box:

• Add: "add a section for electrical," "add a line for exterior painting."
• Remove: "remove the tile line," "remove the Plumbing section."
• Restructure: "regroup by trade," "break into phases," "consolidate further."
• Flag as allowance: "flag the tile as an allowance."

Hank edits surgically — the parts you didn't mention stay exactly as they were.

#Allowances

When your notes mention unselected materials — "TBD," "client to pick," "homeowner choice," "to be selected" — Hank automatically flags those line items as allowances:

• Description prefixed with "Allowance — " so they're immediately identifiable.
• Standard disclaimer in the notes: "Allowance is a material budget placeholder. Client selection above this amount requires a change order."
• No price from Hank — you set the placeholder budget based on typical market pricing.

You can also flag any line item as an allowance mid-conversation: "flag the tile as an allowance."

#Document Notes (Exclusions, Conditions, Site Notes)

Project context that isn't scope — things that belong in the document's notes field — gets extracted into three categories:

• Exclusions — work you're NOT doing: "client buying gutter guards separately," "homeowner handling appliance selection."
• Conditions — prerequisites or status: "permit already pulled by client," "HOA approval required before start."
• Site notes — logistics the crew needs: "dog in backyard, client will confine," "access via side gate, key in lockbox," "work only 8am–5pm."

Hank renders these as a structured block with bold headers and bullet lists. When you insert the draft, the block appends to your existing notes field — your default warranty text, payment terms, and boilerplate are preserved.

#Ask Hank (In-App Help)

Stuck somewhere in the app? Tap the Ask Hank button (right edge on desktop, header icon on mobile). A streaming chat opens with Hank ready to answer questions about:

• Features and how to use them — estimates, invoices, change orders, field notes, catalog, payments, QuickBooks sync.
• Billing — your trial, the subscription, cancellation, renewal dates.
• Your own account — settings, logo, signatures, tax rate.
• Payments — Stripe Connect, ACH, card fees, passing fees to clients.

Ask Hank is grounded in Jobkore's knowledge base and has context from your own account, so answers are specific to you, not generic. If you hit a dead end or want a human, one tap emails the transcript to Jobkore support.

#Polish Your Writing

Beyond scope and document editing, Hank can clean up individual text fields. Look for the Improve button below these fields:

• Notes: tighten the document notes.
• Line descriptions: make them detailed and consistent.
• Line-item notes: polish the detail behind each line.
• Payment terms: tighten the language.
• Email message: refine what goes out with the document.

Pick a writing tone per use: Professional, Friendly, or Formal. Set your default in Settings → Hank AI™. Hank preserves numbers, measurements, and trade jargon exactly — he won't invent shared history ("as discussed," "per the last call") that didn't happen.

Undo works normally: Ctrl+Z on Windows/Linux, ⌘Z on Mac.

#He Knows When a Document Is Locked

Hank is told what the server will refuse before he plans anything, so he does not propose work that would bounce. Ask him to restructure an accepted estimate and he says why he can't, rather than drafting a rebuild you approve and then watching half of it fail.

Two rules, and they are different shapes:

• An accepted, declined or voided document refuses every content edit — line items, sections, pricing, client, dates, notes, terms. Hank will still answer questions about it, and he'll point you at what actually works: a change order to bill additional scope on an accepted document, or duplicating a voided one to start over.
• A part-paid invoice is narrower. Anything that could move the total is blocked, but the title and notes stay open — so he can still tidy your wording on an invoice he cannot reprice.

He will not suggest voiding a part-paid invoice, because the app refuses that while any payment exists.

#Works in Every Trade

Hank is trade-aware across the board. On signup you pick your trade — every trade Jobkore supports is covered — and from then on:

• Transcripts use a glossary filtered to your trade. Ridge vent and underlayment for roofing, AFCI and load calc for electrical, R-19 and vapor barrier for insulation, ridge beam and joist hanger for framing — trade terms come through clean instead of mangled.
• Scope grouping matches how your industry organizes work (see How Hank groups your scope).
• Writing polish keeps trade jargon intact instead of "fixing" it into something generic.

General contractors get broader coverage across categories. Restoration and insurance work gets Xactimate-style structure. If you work across multiple specialties, Hank leans on the context in your notes.

#Hank's Memory

Standing instructions that Hank follows on every draft he builds. Save them once and stop repeating yourself.

Examples

• "I sub out all tile work to ABC Tile."
• "Always include a cleanup section at the end."
• "I don't do electrical — skip all electrical items."
• "Use 'sqft' as the unit for flooring and 'lf' for trim."
• "Include a 10% contingency line item on every estimate."

Managing memory

Up to 20 rules, 150 characters each. Two places to manage them:

• In the Hank dialog: add, edit, or remove rules while you work.
• In Settings: go to Settings → Hank AI™ to manage everything in one place.

Hank can also propose a new rule during chat. If he notices a pattern — "you've added debris removal on the last three estimates, want me to remember that?" — tap Apply to save it.

#Tone and Language

Hank works in English or Spanish. Switch inside any Hank dialog, or set your default in Settings → Hank AI™. Set a Spanish default and the scope, the writing polish, and the Ask Hank chat all respond in Spanish.

Set a default tone — Professional, Friendly, or Formal — and Hank uses it for every writing improvement. You can still override per use.

#Tips for Best Results

• Be specific. Dimensions, materials, quantities, and locations when you know them.
• Attach photos. A photo of a scope sketch or spec sheet often says more than a paragraph.
• Use voice. Talk through the scope on the drive home instead of typing it that night.
• Use memory. Save your standing rules once — Hank knows your trade, your subs, and your standards.
• Iterate in chat. The first draft is a starting point. Tell Hank what to change. He edits the parts you mentioned and leaves the rest alone.
• Review everything. Hank is a sharp assistant, not a replacement for judgment. You always review before sending to a client.