What quote-comparison warnings mean

01The two shapes of warning

Hemma surfaces things you might miss in two different ways:

• Compliance warnings. Amber or red boxes at the top of the comparison, in the Decision Summary panel, labelled Attention. Short sentences, one issue per box.
• Scope differences. A whole section in the comparison, with green/red Included / Not included badges per quote and a gap value in euros where Hemma can estimate it.

Both come from the AI reading every quote and writing a structured comparison. There are no hardcoded thresholds — Hemma decides per pair of quotes what is worth flagging.

02Compliance warnings: the Attention boxes

Each compliance warning is a one-line note about a single quote. They appear at the top of the comparison, just under Hemma's headline analysis.

Two severity levels:

• Warning (amber). Worth knowing about. Examples: a missing warranty period, payment terms that differ from the others, conditions on the validity of the price.
• Urgent (orange/red). The kind of thing that could turn a "cheapest" quote into the most expensive one once you read the small print. Examples: an exclusion that means the cheapest contractor isn't actually quoting for the same work, a clause that puts the risk on you, a price that's only valid if you sign within seven days.

The warning text is direct and specific to your quotes. "Quote from X excludes scaffolding rental" is not a generic template — Hemma read X's quote and saw the line. If a warning is vague, that's a sign Hemma is unsure; treat it as a prompt to read that quote in detail.

03Scope differences: who included what

A separate section, lower down the comparison. Hemma groups items by category — Roofing, Insulation, Finishing, Placement — and for each item shows three things:

• Description. What the item is. "Removal of existing tiles", "Crane rental for installation", "Cleaning at handover".
• Inclusion per quote. A green Included or red Not included pill under each quote. Informational appears when an item is mentioned but not priced.
• Estimated gap value. Where Hemma can put a number on what's missing, it does — "Estimated value: €1,200". Where the value is too uncertain to estimate (e.g. "weather delay clause"), there's no number.

This is where the real money usually hides. Two roofing quotes can look €1,500 apart on price and €4,000 apart once you account for what one of them quietly leaves out.

04The kinds of issues Hemma looks for

Per trade, Hemma's analysis is tuned to the things that actually go wrong on that kind of work. Across all trades, the prompt asks Hemma to check:

• Validity period. A quote good for 30 days is a different proposition from one good for 6 months.
• Warranty. Length, what's covered, what voids it.
• Payment terms. Deposit percentage, milestone payments, final balance timing.
• Placement timeline. When the contractor expects to be on site, lead time on materials.
• Crane and equipment costs. Often invisible until the job starts.
• Conditions and exclusions. Anything the quote explicitly says it does not cover.

When something on this list is suspiciously absent, vague, or unusually onerous, it ends up as a compliance warning. When something is present in one quote and missing from another, it ends up in scope differences.

05What the warnings are not

A few things worth saying out loud:

• They are not a recommendation. Hemma never says "pick this one". The warnings are flags, not verdicts. You decide which trade-offs matter for your project.
• They are not exhaustive. The AI catches a lot, but it cannot read everything you can read. A warning is a starting point — read the actual quote when something is flagged.
• They are not stable across runs. If the underlying quotes change (a new version is uploaded, a quote is added or removed), the comparison re-runs and the warnings can change. That's by design — Hemma re-reads everything.

06Common questions

Why is one quote flagged urgent and the other isn't, when they look similar? Because the AI found something specific in one quote — usually an exclusion or a clause — that doesn't appear in the other. Open both quotes and read the section the warning points at.

A scope difference says €0 gap. Is that meaningful? Yes — it usually means Hemma found an item that's missing from one quote but couldn't price it (e.g. "weather delay protection", where the cost depends on what actually happens). The fact it's missing is still worth knowing.

A warning seems wrong. AI flagging is not perfect. Read the underlying quote at the page Hemma is pointing at. If you genuinely think the AI misread the document, see the AI extracted the wrong amount or contractor for how to log a correction.

Where do per-trade differences in the warnings come from? Hemma's prompts are tuned per trade — roofing looks at warranty and material spec, electrical at the number of points and whether the inspection is included, HVAC at SEER ratings and warranty, and so on. Hemma compares what the quotes say. It does not check them against building regulations or EPB requirements: ask your architect or EPB assessor about those.

07What if it goes wrong

• The Attention boxes are empty: Hemma did not flag anything urgent in this comparison. Not always good news — read the quotes anyway.
• The Scope differences section is empty: the quotes covered the same items at the same level of detail. Most projects this is the green-light moment.
• The warning text is in the wrong language: comparison output reflects the language of the quotes themselves, not your interface language. Ask the contractor to send a version in your language if it's a blocker.

08Related

• Comparing quotes side by side
• Picking the right trade for a contractor
• The AI extracted the wrong amount or contractor
• Reading a contractor's financial history