Most estimates start life as a document: a PDF proposal, a spreadsheet export, a quick text breakdown, or a carefully written scope in a client email. The problem is that once the work begins, that document usually stops participating in the project. The estimate sat in the client's inbox. The tracked time sat in the timer. The relationship between the two existed only in your head, reconstructed once a month from memory.
Ayron's Estimates workspace turns that static estimate into a living project baseline. You can import an existing proposal or build a staged estimate from a template, add milestone rows, and watch tracked hours against the plan in real time — with next-milestone health feeding into AI weekly reports for better schedule insights.
The goal is not to turn Ayron into heavyweight project management software. The goal is to make the estimate useful after the client says yes.
Two ways to start: import or build
Import from document
If you already have a proposal or quote, start with Import from document. Ayron accepts PDF, plain text, Markdown, and CSV. The import flow extracts the original line items, suggested stage budgets, hours, amounts, and category mappings. You review the parse before saving.
Importing an estimate does not create timer tasks — it creates the budget baseline that future tracked work is compared against. That separation keeps your task list clean while still making the original estimate measurable.
Build from template
If you're starting fresh, use Build from template. The builder gives you editable stage rows for common project shapes (web development, design, consulting, custom blank), plus:
- edit stage descriptions;
- map each row to a work category;
- set hours and rates;
- add contingency;
- add milestone rows;
- drag stages and milestones into the right order;
- attach the finished estimate to a client or project.
This matters because not every estimate is attached to an active project yet. You might be quoting a prospect, revising scope, or drafting a plan before the client approves the work. Ayron lets the estimate exist first and become linked later.
Milestones as separators, not bureaucracy
Milestones in Ayron are intentionally lightweight. You don't create a dependency graph. You don't build a Gantt chart. You add a milestone row directly inside the estimate and drag it into position.
Everything above that milestone is considered due by that date.
That gives you a simple structure:
- Discovery
- UX flows
- Visual design
- Milestone: Design sign-off
- Frontend implementation
- Backend integration
- QA
- Milestone: Launch candidate
Because milestones live inside the estimate order, they give Ayron better context for analysis: which work should be done by now, how many hours were supposed to be spent by this point, and whether the project is drifting before the overall budget is exhausted.
The milestone calendar is intentionally compact: quick options for one week, two weeks, one month, or a quarter, plus a lightweight month grid for exact dates. No project management ceremony — just a date and a position in the plan.
From proposal to delivery plan in 5 steps
1. Open Estimates
From the sidebar, open the Estimates workspace. This is where all estimate creation happens — separate from the time tracking view, because estimates are a planning tool, not a tracking surface.
2. Import or build
Choose Import from document if you have a signed proposal, or Build from template if you're starting from scratch. Either way, you get editable stage rows with hours, rates, and category mappings.
3. Add milestones
Click between any two stages to insert a milestone row. Set a date. Drag it into position. Everything above the milestone is due by that date — so Ayron knows what work should be complete by design sign-off, by launch candidate, or by any other checkpoint you define.
4. Attach to a project
Once the estimate is ready, attach it to a client and project. The project detail pane changes shape: you now see Estimate vs Actual, Next Milestone, and Category Progress.
5. Track normally
Track time the way you always do — menu bar timer, voice timer, iPhone timer. Every tracked hour rolls into the project and category it belongs to. The estimate-vs-actual bar fills. The next-milestone health updates. The AI weekly report reads the milestone context and tells you whether you're on pace.
You used to need a spreadsheet, a recurring calendar reminder, and the discipline to actually open the spreadsheet. Now you need the discipline to glance at a colored bar.
How milestones feed into AI insights
This is the part that makes milestones more than a cosmetic feature. When a project has a staged estimate with milestones, the AI weekly report reads:
- Milestone dates — when each checkpoint is due.
- Hours due by milestone — the cumulative estimated hours for all stages above the next milestone.
- Hours logged so far — what you've actually tracked against those stages.
- Pace required — hours per day needed to hit the next milestone on time.
This means the AI can surface insights like:
- "Client B's next milestone (Design sign-off) is due in 5 days with 18h remaining of 32h estimated. At current pace, you'll need 4.5h/day to stay on track."
- "The Discovery phase is at 14h tracked against a 10h estimate. You're past 100%; consider a scope conversation before the next milestone."
- "Three projects are now 80%+ through their estimate but none are flagged as nearing their next milestone. If they're stretching, the margin is shrinking."
Without milestones, the AI can only talk about total budget burn — "you're 60% through the project estimate." With milestones, it can talk about schedule health — "you're 60% through the budget but only 40% through the scheduled work, and the next milestone is due Thursday." That's a different category of insight, and it's the one that lets you act before the project becomes unprofitable.
What you see after the estimate is attached
Once an estimate is linked to a project, the project detail pane shows three views:
Estimate vs Actual
A single ratio: hours tracked / hours estimated. The bar fills as you log time. The color tells the story without calculation — normal while under budget, orange as you approach the limit, red once you cross it. The variance number sits next to the bar in hours, so "you are 6.3 hours over" is one glance.
Next Milestone
If the estimate includes milestone rows, Ayron shows the next milestone date, the hours due by that milestone, the hours logged so far, and the pace needed to stay on track. That turns "we're probably fine" into something measurable.
Category Progress
Each category from the estimate gets its own progress row. As entries are logged to tasks mapped to those categories, the per-row bars fill. You can see at a glance that Design is on budget but Development is already 30% over with weeks of work left.
When milestones help vs when they're overkill
Milestones are a lightweight tool, and not every project needs them. Here's when to use them and when to skip:
Use milestones when:
- The project has natural checkpoints (design sign-off, launch, QA handoff).
- The client expects progress updates tied to dates.
- You want the AI to warn you about schedule drift, not just budget drift.
- The project is fixed-fee and scope conversations need to happen at defined points.
Skip milestones when:
- It's an hourly engagement with no fixed scope or deadline.
- It's a short project (under 20 hours) where a single bar is enough.
- It's a retainer where the "estimate" is just a monthly hour budget.
- Adding milestones would be ceremony, not structure.
The test is simple: if you can name the next checkpoint and when it should happen, add a milestone. If you can't, the estimate-vs-actual bar alone is enough.
Why keep it lightweight?
Freelancers and small studios usually do not need another project management system. They need a better answer to:
- Are we still inside the quote?
- Which part of the work is eating the budget?
- What should be done by the next milestone?
- Do we need a scope conversation before invoicing week?
Ayron's estimate milestones are built for those questions. No Gantt charts. No dependency trees. No status theater. Just enough structure for the app and the AI analysis layer to understand the plan — and for you to know whether the project is drifting before the whole budget is gone.
For the full guide on estimate-vs-actual tracking — including document import details, AI digest parsing, and the review workflow — see Track every project against its estimate. For a free tool that builds a staged estimate before you import it, see the project estimate calculator.
FAQ
What is a milestone in Ayron's Estimates workspace? A milestone is a row you insert between estimate stages that marks a checkpoint date. Everything above the milestone is considered due by that date. Milestones are intentionally lightweight — no Gantt charts, no dependency graphs, just a date and a position in the plan.
How do I add a milestone to an estimate? In the Estimates workspace, open a staged estimate and click between any two stages to insert a milestone row. Set a date using the quick options (one week, two weeks, one month, quarter) or the month grid. Drag the milestone into position — everything above it is due by that date.
Can I reorder stages and milestones? Yes. Drag any row — stage or milestone — into the position you want. The milestone date stays attached to the row; everything above it at that point in the order is considered due by the milestone date.
What happens when I miss a milestone? Nothing breaks. The Next Milestone view in the project detail pane shows the hours due, hours logged, and pace required. If you're behind pace, the AI weekly report flags it in the "watch this" section — but the timer keeps running and the estimate-vs-actual bar keeps filling. A missed milestone is a signal for a scope conversation, not a system error.
Do milestones feed into the AI weekly report? Yes. When a project has a staged estimate with milestones, the AI weekly report reads milestone dates, hours due by each milestone, and current pace. This means the report can surface schedule-specific insights like "Client B's next milestone (Design sign-off) is due in 5 days with 18h remaining" — not just total budget burn. See how the AI weekly report works.
Can I use milestones without a staged estimate? No. Milestones live inside the estimate structure — they're rows between stages. If you just want a simple hours budget without stages or milestones, you can set a single estimated hours number on the project and use the estimate-vs-actual bar without milestones.
Does this work on iPhone or iPad? Estimate creation, document import, and milestone setup are Mac features today. The estimate itself syncs as project data, so the budget context and milestone dates appear in project views on iOS. Full estimate editing on iOS is planned.
Can I import an existing proposal and then add milestones? Yes. Import the document first, review the parsed stages, save, then add milestone rows between the stages. The imported stages and the manually added milestones coexist in the same estimate.
What if the AI digest gets the parse wrong on import? The review step is where you fix it. You can adjust categories, hours, and amounts per line item before saving. The original document text is also retained on the estimate so you can re-import or audit later.
Ayron details are based on its public landing page and should be treated as marketing claims rather than independent product verification.