Guides / Getting started
Send your first estimate
Draft it from your own rates, tick the finishes this client sees, approve it, and copy the link. The sixth step, and the one that closes the setup card.
What you need first
- Your rates in, so the engine will price
- A project with measurements on its Specs tab
By the end of this guide a client has a private link to a price range built from your own rates, and the setup card is gone. Nothing was emailed on your behalf and nothing left your hands unread.
Open the job and press Draft the estimate
On the job's Documents tab, the Estimate card carries a quiet To do and the line Built from your rates and the current measurements. You read it here before anyone else does.
Press Draft the estimate. You stay on the job.
- 1To do until there is a draft
- 2Draft the estimate. The figures come off your own rungs
Read the three finishes and tick what this client sees
The card turns to In review and opens the whole review inside it. Three finish families sit side by side, each with its own range, under the line Select the finishes to send. Each one is shown as its own range.
Tap one, two or all three. Nothing on the card ranks them and there is no box anywhere to type a different figure into. Choose the finishes the client sees covers why.
Press Approve and create link
Approve & create link stays disabled until at least one finish is ticked. Pressing it passes the estimate through review and mints the client's private link. No email goes out.
The card turns to Approved, a copy field appears, and under it the date the link closes. An estimate link is good for seven days.
Copy the link and send it yourself
Press Copy and paste the link into a text or an email to the client. That is the whole of sending in version one: Approve and copy the link goes through it, and what the client's estimate looks like shows what opens at the other end.
There is an Email it to the client button beside it. On a workspace with no sending address configured it answers with a plain sentence saying nothing was sent, which is the honest state of email delivery today. The link works either way.
Watch the setup card go
An estimate at Approved or Sent closes the sixth row. The Set up your shop card only draws while a step is open, so it disappears on your next look at Projects, and it does not come back.
What happens next
The setup is done and the product is now about one job at a time. Start with Log a lead, or read Draft the estimate for what the engine does with your rungs.