<p>First, don&#39;t panic and don&#39;t just eat the increase. Go back to your numbers and figure out if the new price still lets the job pencil out.</p> <p>Here&#39;s the sequence that works:</p> <ol><li><strong>Confirm the scope hasn&#39;t shifted.</strong> Sometimes a &quot;price increase&quot; is really a scope clarification. Check the sub&#39;s quote against your original BOQ line items before you assume it&#39;s pure inflation.</li></ol> <ol><li><strong>Update your estimate immediately, not at the end of the job.</strong> This is the whole point of running your model in BidLight. Change the labor, material, or equipment cost for that line item and the number updates in real time across the estimate, so you see the real impact on margin right away instead of finding out at closeout.</li></ol> <ol><li><strong>Re-check your win price.</strong> If the increase eats your margin, decide now whether you eat it, pass it to the owner, or requote. That&#39;s a business call, but you can only make it well if your estimate is current.</li></ol> <ol><li><strong>Compare against the market.</strong> BidLight pulls current pricing from a large cost database plus Craftsman, 1Build, and RSMeans. Use that to sanity-check whether the sub&#39;s new number is in line with the market or an outlier worth pushing back on.</li></ol> <ol><li><strong>Document it and move on.</strong> Keep the revised number tied to that line item so your next estimate starts accurate instead of stale.</li></ol> <p>The habit that actually protects your margin is not chasing this update by hand later. Estimates that stay live save you from the redo.</p>