Estimates

Estimates (Service desk group, owners and admins) are quotes for a customer or a prospect.

Build one

New estimate: a title, who it goes to (one of the customer's contacts), an optional valid-until date, and lines. Each line comes from the catalogue or is typed in, is billed once or every month, and can have a discount in percent. The estimate shows what's due once and what's due every month, before tax: tax is added on the invoice by your accounting system.

Send it

Send emails the contact a link to the estimate. Anyone with the link can see that one estimate and approve or decline it, without signing in; nothing else of yours is visible there. Just make the link marks it sent without an email, to paste the link wherever you like.

Editing a sent estimate makes it a draft again and stops its link; send it again for a new one. Sending again also replaces the link.

The customer's answer

• Through the link: they type their name to approve, or decline, with an optional note.
• In the portal: portal users see their organisation's estimates under Estimates and answer there.
• Another way: Record an answer when they said yes or no on the phone or by email.

A decision is final. The team hears about it if they turn on "Customer approved or declined an estimate" in their notification settings. After the valid-until date, an unanswered estimate is expired and can't be answered.

After approval

An approved estimate's Next steps, each once:

• Open a ticket for the work, listing the lines.
• Charge the one-time lines: they go on the customer's next one-off invoice draft. A prospect has to be converted to a customer first.
• Propose a contract from the monthly lines: a proposed contract (100% likely) in the pipeline. Make it active on the Contracts page when it starts.

Approved estimates are kept: they're the record of what the customer agreed to.