Quotes

A quote is a price you are offering, not money you are owed. It stays out of your income, your reports and your tax figures until you turn it into an invoice. Send one, your customer accepts or declines it online, and an accepted quote becomes a draft invoice in one click.

Writing a Quote

  1. Go to Quotes in the navigation menu, under Revenue
  2. Click New Quote
  3. Pick the customer in the Bill To box on the quote itself, or create one as you type (see Customer Management)
  4. Add line items from your product catalogue (see Product Management)
  5. Set the issue date and a valid until date, after which the price is no longer on offer
  6. Click Preview, then Send quote

Templates

Quotes and invoices share one set of templates, so both arrive looking the same. Choose which one to use in the panel beside the quote as you write it, or click Templates at the top of the Quotes page to design them (see Report Generator for the designer itself).

Sending a Quote

Sending needs the payment portal set up, because that is what hosts the page your customer answers on. See Payment Portal for the one-time setup.

Your customer gets an email with a link. The page shows the quote exactly as you built it, with Accept and Decline buttons and a box for a message back. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install.

Note: Quotes are unlimited on every plan. There is a limit on how many can be emailed in a day, which exists so the address Argo Books sends from cannot be used to send bulk mail. Ordinary use will not reach it.

Their Answer

When a customer accepts or declines, the answer comes back into Argo Books on its own, along with any message they left. The quote's status changes and you get a notification.

If they tell you some other way, by phone or in person, use the tick or cross on the quote's row to record it yourself. Nothing is emailed when you do; it only saves the answer here.

Resending and Revising

The send button on a quote you have already sent becomes Resend, which asks you to confirm and then sends the same quote again.

To change the price, edit the quote and send it again. If your customer had already answered, Argo Books warns you first: sending a revised quote clears their answer and asks them again.

Note: Editing a quote your customer already has does not change what they see. They keep the version you sent until you resend it.

Turning a Quote Into an Invoice

Click the invoice icon on an accepted quote. Argo Books copies the customer, the lines and the totals into a draft invoice and opens it for you to check. Nothing is sent, no revenue is recorded, and no payment is requested until you send that invoice yourself.

The quote is then marked Converted, and the invoice button on its row takes you to the invoice it became.

Expiry

A sent quote whose valid-until date has passed shows as Expired and can no longer be answered online. The Quotes page counts how many are close to expiring, so you can chase the ones still worth chasing.

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