Build a quote
Line items, prices from your list, VAT, deposits, and what the customer will see.
Written 30 September 2026
What is said in this recording
A quote is a priced list of what you will do. The customer gets their own page for it, can accept it there, and the job and invoice are built from it afterwards — so the effort you put in here is not repeated later.
Step by step
- 1
Go to Quotes and press New quote.
- 2
Choose the customer.
Start typing a name, address or phone number. If they are not on your list yet, press Add a new customer underneath — a name and a postcode is enough, and the quote carries on where you left it. If any details the quote needs are missing, you are asked for them here rather than being sent off to the customer record.
- 3
Choose where the work happens, if you are offered the choice.
At the customer's address, at your own premises, by telephone or online. A phone or video appointment needs nobody to travel, so it is left out of routing and travel times entirely.
- 4
Give the work a title.
This names the job the quote becomes, so make it something you would recognise on a list.
- 5
Add your line items.
Your price list sits under the lines under “Add from your price list” — press one and it drops straight in, priced. Or type a one-off line. Each line has a quantity, a price, and optionally what it costs you.
- 6
Check the VAT rate.
It defaults to your business rate. Change it on the quote if this particular job is different.
- 7
Set a deposit, if you want one to hold the booking.
A percentage of the total. The customer pays it on their own page and the slot is held once it clears.
- 8
Set how it gets booked.
Either the customer picks a time from your calendar, or you have already agreed a time with them and you set it here.
- 9
Press Create quote.
Worth knowing
Adding a customer from here adds them properly
It is the same record you would get from the Customers page — their own reference, their place in your address book, and the same refusal if somebody of that name already exists at that postcode. Only the few fields you need to get on with the quote are asked for; everything else can be filled in on their customer page later. If you do not see the option, your account does not have the Customers area, and whoever runs the business can switch it on.
Taking money off
Press Add discount for a line of its own, and give it either an amount or a percentage — the £/% box switches between them. Enter it as a positive figure; it is taken off automatically. A percentage is always of the work, so two discounts are each of the job rather than of each other, and the VAT comes off what is left. The customer sees the discount as its own line, which is the point of giving one.
A discount cannot be bigger than the job
Type one that is and it is set to the whole job and says so, rather than quietly becoming something smaller than you meant. On your own figures a discount reduces what you sold rather than counting as a line nobody costed, so the profit on the reports falls by exactly what you gave away.
A quote with no prices on it cannot be sent
You can save one and come back to it — a draft is a draft. But Send is switched off until something on it has a price, because a customer who opens a quote totalling £0.00 has been told in writing that the work is free, and they can accept it on the spot. A quote whose lines carry prices that net off to nothing — account credit covering the work — sends perfectly normally.
Picking from the price list does not add VAT twice
Your price list stores the price before VAT. If you type prices with VAT included, the price on the button shows you the full price and the line box holds the same number. If it ever looks like it has jumped 20%, check the “prices include VAT” setting rather than re-typing the price.
Costs are what make the profit reports work
The margin figures come off the line items, never off the invoice total. A line with no cost on it is counted as unknown rather than free, and the reports print how much of the work they can actually speak for.
Quoting somebody out of area warns you
If the customer is beyond the service radius you set, you are told before the quote is created and have to confirm. Only ever for work somebody drives to.