Help · Money

Estimates

The quote you send before the work starts, kept in the same file as the invoice that follows it, so there is no gap between what you promised and what you billed.

Where it is called something else

Architects usually call these fee proposals, construction and photography call them quotes. Pick your industry and the wording follows. It is one feature with three names.

Making one

Two ways in: start from scratch with your own lines, or build one from unbilled time when a client wants a sense of the figure before you carry on.

The lifecycle

• Draft you are still writing it.
• Sent the client has it.
• Accepted they said yes. This unlocks conversion.
• Declined they said no, and it stays on file so you remember what you quoted and when.
• Converted it became an invoice. The estimate stays as the record of what was agreed.

Converting

An accepted estimate turns into a draft invoice carrying the same lines, so you can top it up with the tracked time that actually happened before sending. Estimates have their own numbering sequence, separate from invoices, so the two never collide.

An estimate is not an invoice

It has no payment status, because nobody has paid anything yet, and it never counts as revenue in reports. It is a document that turns into one, and until it does, it is just a promise.

Next: invoices · industry vocabulary