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Move a quotation to a decision
Send it, record what the customer said, and turn a yes into an invoice.
- Steps
- 4 · About 3 min
- Who can do this
- Owner · Manager · Team member
- Needs the module
- Sell
Before you start
A quotation is a question you asked a customer, and it is worth exactly as much as the answer you record. The quote screen runs a four-step strip across the top — Prepared → Sent → Decision → Invoice — and your job is to keep it honest.
Prepared, then sent
A new quotation is a draft. Review it, print or send it, then press Mark as sent.
Marking it sent is not paperwork. Until you do, the quotation is a thing you are still writing; afterwards it is a thing you are waiting on, and the two belong in different mental piles. Send again is there for the second copy people always ask for.
Record the decision
When the customer answers, say so:
Customer accepted — they said yes. The quotation is now something you owe them.
Customer declined — they said no. Recorded, with the quotation intact.
Mark expired — the validity date passed without an answer. Not the same as a no, and worth distinguishing: expired quotations are the ones worth chasing, refused ones are not.
Cancel quotation is for one you should not have sent at all.
The value of this is not the individual quotation, it is a year of them. A register where every quotation carries its outcome tells you what proportion of what you quote turns into work, and which customers never answer.
Turn a yes into an invoice
On an accepted quotation, Create draft invoice. You choose the invoice date and the payment due date; the lines and totals are copied across.
They are copied once. After that the invoice is its own document — editing it does not change the quotation, and the quotation stays exactly as the customer accepted it. That is the point: what you agreed and what you billed remain separately readable, and a difference between them is visible rather than buried.
The invoice arrives as a draft. Review it and confirm it in the usual way — creating an invoice covers what confirming does. Nothing is owed, and no number is assigned, until you do.
Why the expiry date earns its place
A quotation with a validity date protects you from prices you set months ago. When the date passes, mark it expired rather than letting a customer accept last season's price on this season's costs.
Converting does not consume the quotation. It stays in the register marked Invoiced, linked to what it became, which is what somebody comparing the two in six months needs.
Next, you might want to
- Write a quotation and turn it into an invoiceGive a customer a price that holds until a date, then convert the accepted one without retyping it.
- Create and confirm a sales invoiceBill a customer for goods or services, then confirm it so it counts in your books.
- Print or send a document as PDFPrint an invoice, quotation, delivery note, or credit note — and control what appears on the paper.