Approving, declining, and revising an estimate

What this does

Moves an estimate out of the waiting state. Approval turns it into a work order; a decline records why; a revision sends a declined quote back to the customer for another look.

Before you start

Approving requires estimates.approve (Owner, General Manager, Service Manager, Service Writer). Office Managers can create and edit estimates but not approve them.

Steps

The customer approves from the link. Nothing to do. The job moves to Approved, stamped with the customer's approval, and shows in Work Orders.

The customer approves in person or by phone. Open the estimate and use Convert to Work Order. The job moves to Approved and is stamped with your login as the approver. It is the same record with the same number; nothing is copied.

The customer declines. Set the status to Declined, or let them decline from the link, where they can give a reason. Consider logging what they turned down under Declined services so it can be followed up.

Revising a declined estimate. Edit the lines, then use revise and resend. The estimate goes back to Estimate, the decline reason is cleared, and a fresh email goes out. The customer can respond again from the same link.

Deleting

You can delete a job only while it's in the estimate band (Estimate, Declined, or Cancelled). Once it has been approved and worked, or has an invoice against it, delete is refused; void the invoice first if it's a mistake, or cancel the job.

Common problems

Convert to Work Order does nothing visible. It only changes status. Look under Sales → Work Orders; the job is there as Approved.

"This estimate has an invoice and can't be deleted." An invoice was created from it. Open the invoice and void it, then delete the estimate.

The revised estimate email failed but the status changed. The revise succeeded; only the email didn't go out. Copy the share link and send it another way.