Quotes

A quote is a budget before anyone has agreed to it. Finance > Quotes is where one is drafted, sent, accepted and turned into the budget the work runs on.

To do this	You need
Read quotes and the pipeline	Manage quotes, Send quotes or Approve quotes
Draft, edit, price from a brief, set the schedule	Manage quotes
Send, resend, revise, withdraw, share or revoke a link	Send quotes
Convert an accepted quote	Manage budgets, plus project create or update

The list and the pipeline

The list shows every quote you can see with its number, client, stage, chance and validity. Above it, the pipeline: weighted value, open value and how many are open.

Two currencies are never added together. A quote in a currency with no rate into your reporting currency is counted as Not valued and shown with its own total, rather than converted at a guess.

The list shows 50 quotes at a time. Use Previous and Next below it to reach every matching quote; the result count comes from the full filtered list. Changing search, stage or client starts from the first page. If loading fails, choose Try again. Pipeline figures summarise their own selected scope.

Lines, options and packages

A quote uses the same line model as a budget, with three additions:

• Optional lines the client can take or leave.
• Packages, a group where the client picks exactly one option and one is the default.
• Hidden contingency, a line that is in your total but is never shown to the client and cannot be optional or part of a package.

The tabs cover the lines, what the client reads, the payment schedule, the versions and, for a quote priced from a brief, how it was priced.

Edit a line’s details

In Discount, choose % or the quote currency, then enter the discount. Changing its type resets the discount to zero; enter the new value before sending the quote. A saved fixed discount remains visible as an amount when you review a read-only quote.

Select the chevron beside a line to show its description, activity code, billing type, unit, section, cap and time, expense and booking settings. Percentage and pass-through lines show their relevant pricing fields. Changes save when you leave a field; press Escape to cancel an inline text edit. Money must be a valid amount before it can save. Price fields require price access.

Changing Activity code applies that activity’s default billing type, unit and rate-card role. The rate updates from the effective rate card. If the activity has no linked rate, the rate becomes zero so you can enter a price for that work.

Changing Hour to Day converts the saved rate using Daily capacity (hours) from Organisation settings. Day lines show Hours per day: enter a different value to override it for that line, or clear it to use the current organisation default. You can also edit Rate directly. Changing back to Hour converts your saved daily rate using the line’s hours per day. Saved day hours stay unchanged when organisation settings change later.

Choosing Percentage starts at zero if the line has no saved percentage. Enter Percent and choose its base to calculate the price. Non-billable sets the price to zero. Fixed and time-and-materials lines can have the same estimated total; the billing type determines how the work is billed. Moving to an item price clears a rate from another unit, so enter the agreed item price. Section changes also recalculate percentage lines that use that section. Tracking and booking switches control how work is recorded; they do not change the quoted price. A cap limits usage rather than discounting the quote.

Removing a fully visible, ungrouped section keeps its lines. For a populated hidden, subtotal-only or packaged section, first move the lines out, or explicitly show all its lines and clear the section package. This prevents a section removal from unexpectedly exposing the breakdown to the client.

Preview the quote document

New previews and newly issued documents show line quantities with up to four decimal places, leaving off trailing zeros. For example, a quantity of 1.3333 is shown as 1.3333. Earlier issued documents keep their original presentation.

If the acceptance page says the original document is unavailable, ask the sender for a new version. You cannot accept that version until its original presentation is available. An acceptance already recorded stays recorded. A PDF still being prepared does not prevent acceptance when the complete document is readable.

Use Internal notes for information intended only for your team. Select Save after editing. These notes stay on the quote for authorised staff and are excluded from client previews, hosted documents, PDFs and email attachments. Put information the client needs in the cover, scope, assumptions, exclusions or terms fields instead. Copies already downloaded or emailed cannot be recalled.

Choose Document preview in the quote header. A draft uses its current saved values. A sent or accepted version uses its saved document and accepted selection where applicable. Choose a version in Versions to review its document.

New documents label optional lines and package choices as Included in total or Not included in total. Unselected offers keep their prices for reference but do not increase a section subtotal. Section subtotals cover the selected visible lines; hidden contingencies remain included in the overall total. An accepted document follows the client’s accepted choices. Existing sent documents keep their original presentation; revise the quote to create a new offer.

You need price access as well as quote read access. Opening or refreshing the preview does not number or send the quote. Use Refresh preview to reload it and Close preview to return to the editor. If the saved document is still being prepared, the preview explains that instead of showing a different version. On narrow screens, the signature and date appear on separate rows so both remain readable. Accepted signer details wrap within the document.

On the client page, Read the full document uses the document’s saved layout. After acceptance, it shows the agreed selection and signer details, matching the accepted PDF. If that document is still being prepared, the acceptance remains saved and the earlier unsigned document is not offered in its place. Staff previews wait for the same accepted document. The full document can become readable before its PDF finishes preparing. Refresh the page to check progress.

Approval covers what the client could choose

If a client can choose between packages, they can choose a total nobody approved. So the approval is not the default set: it is the worst case across every legal choice, and the approver sees the range rather than one number. This includes effective discounts entered as fixed amounts. Each package contributes exactly one option to the choices being approved.

Where the combinations are too many to enumerate, the send is refused until you lock the selection, which is the honest form of approving one exact set. A locked quote takes the default set whatever the client ticks.

An edit to a quote that is waiting for approval returns it to draft, and the approval it had stops counting.

Sending

1. Select Send and enter the recipient in To. Add Cc recipients and a Message if needed.
2. Review the addresses and message, then select Send in the dialog.
3. If sending fails, the dialog keeps your entries so you can correct them or try again. Cancel closes the dialog; reopening it starts a fresh message.

Send does everything in one commit: it validates the quote live, assigns the number, freezes the version, mints the client link and queues the PDF and the email. The link works immediately. If the PDF fails to render, the send still stands and the document catches up.

A sent version is frozen. Resend sends the same version with a fresh link. Revise opens the next version as a draft, leaving the sent one exactly as the client saw it, and the old link forwards to the current version.

Withdraw kills every live link, and the quote can no longer be accepted.

If withdrawal or revision is refused, the confirmation keeps your reason and shows the explanation. Review it before trying again. Cancel closes the confirmation; reopening it starts with a fresh reason and no previous error.

What the client sees

The hosted page carries no cost, no margin, no hidden contingency line, no hidden section and none of your internal timeline. Use Client view to check the client-facing lines and options. Use Document preview to check the document layout.

In Client view, each line’s Amount is its price after line discounts and before tax. Tax is listed separately below the subtotal. For example, ten units at $100 with 10% tax show a $1,000 line amount and $100 tax. Unselected options keep their offered prices without being added to the selected total. An unavailable line price is labelled rather than shown as zero. Optional and package rows also state whether they are included in the total, including in read-only previews and accepted quotes.

A client can try a different selection and watch the total move without anything being recorded. Accepting is the only thing that writes.

Acceptance records an immutable row: the version, the selection, the totals, the terms, the signer’s name and email, and the time. A second submission of the same link returns the first result rather than overwriting the original evidence. Where the quote asks for a one-time code, the code is tied to that email and that action. A required code also applies to declining. Incorrect codes count towards the attempt limit, and acceptance requires a signature when the quote asks for one.

An expired or superseded link says so on a live page rather than dying.

Pricing from a brief

A quote can be priced from a completed plan: one line per role, hours summed from the plan’s tasks, prices from the client’s effective rate card at a stated date, and a proposed schedule from the milestones.

Every hour keeps its lineage back to the task it came from, which is what the “how it was priced” tab shows. A role no rate card prices is reported as unpriced with a zero price rather than given an invented rate.

Pricing the same plan again returns the same quote. Pricing a plan that has moved on is refused rather than quietly pricing the old one.

Accepted quote and change-order PDFs are prepared after acceptance. A temporary preparation failure is retried without changing the acceptance or creating a second signed document. The download becomes available when preparation finishes.

Recorded tax treatment

Sending keeps every offered tax treatment with that version, including rates used only by optional lines. Later tax settings changes do not change the client’s quote or acceptance. A tax change before sending is part of the approval check and can require approval again.

An older optional line whose tax treatment cannot be recovered shows Price unavailable. The client cannot choose it. Prepare a revised quote with a recorded treatment if you want to offer that option. An accepted quote keeps the amounts and treatment recorded with its acceptance.

Converting

Convert creates a draft budget from the accepted version: the selected lines plus every hidden contingency line, with the schedule remapped onto the new lines.

Tax-inclusive quotes keep their entered prices, quantities, discounts and percentage bases when converted. The budget’s sold amount excludes the tax recorded at acceptance, so it agrees with the accepted subtotal. Duplicating a quote also keeps its price entry and rounding settings.

Previously converted budgets keep their existing figures. Compare an older budget with its accepted quote before activating it; an active budget needs a change order for a correction.

The budget is a draft, and the project stays a draft too. Converting never activates anything.

Converting twice, including overlapping requests, returns the first budget and keeps one active converted project. A schedule item that pays for a line the client did not choose refuses the conversion rather than dropping the money silently. A declined or expired quote converts only with a reason, which is recorded.

Change orders the client signs

A budget change order can be sent for client acceptance the same way, with a diff block showing what was previously agreed, what is changing and the new total.

Client acceptance is separate from internal approval, and no path applies the change until the acceptance exists. A change order that would push a line below what has already been recognised or invoiced is refused, because that needs a credit note.

Next step

Set up the budget the quote created: Budgets, or put a client on a Retainer. To price a different shape of the same work without touching the offer, see Scenarios.

On a narrow screen, scroll the line table horizontally to reach Offered as and the other columns. Tabs and page actions wrap onto additional rows. Finance navigation appears as a horizontal strip above the quote.

Help from Ru

Ask Ru to explain this workflow, inspect records you can access, or carry out supported steps when you authorise them. Your permissions and approval rules still apply. See Finance with Ru.

Reliable draft totals

Saving draft changes also updates the quote totals and recorded reporting value. If recalculation fails, the edit is not saved. Copying a quote keeps its schedule allocations linked to the copied lines. The Sales pipeline includes every open quote and keeps recorded currency values when exchange-rate settings change. See Finance Reports for stage probabilities and missing-value coverage.

If an older converted budget does not match the accepted quote pricing, use Review quote pricing on the budget. You can review the proposed change before adopting it or opening a correction. The accepted quote and issued invoices stay unchanged.

Client portal

Authorised client members can also open Quotes and changes in the Client Portal to review and accept an issued quote or change in place. Required signatures and verification codes still apply. Declining a protected quote requires its own decline code.

New quote and change-order documents use the logo saved in Finance setup. Saving a replacement does not change documents already issued.