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How to Create and Send an Estimate
How to Create and Send an Estimate

A step by step tutorial on how to send your first estimate

Billy Webb avatar
Written by Billy Webb
Updated over a week ago

If you are using the lead board and generating leads from your website, the 'cloning' feature will allow you to convert a lead directly into a proposal or estimate.

Note: If you are yet to encounter the Cloning feature please refer to our tutorial How to Clone (copy) Documents for Easier Document Creation.

In this tutorial however, you will learn how to create an estimate without using the cloning feature. 

How to Create an Estimate 

Note: The document creation process detailed below is consistent with all documents in Tudodesk. Once you have completed this tutorial you will have the skills to create any document in Tudodesk.

Navigate to the 'Estimate' board and click the + icon shown below

Note: In this tutorial the document is referred to as an Estimate but if you provide Quotations the steps follow the same process. For clarity; estimates, quotations and proposals are referred to as 'Deals.'

The 'Create New Deal' screen shown below will appear

Firstly, you must add the customers details.

Note: Tudodesk stores previously used information to prevent repetition and save time.

If you are estimating a new client click the 'Create new contact' button.

If you are estimating an existing customer, try using the search box to enter their name or email address. Tudodesk will suggest results close to your entry as you type, taken directly from your customer database. 

In this example, we will be adding a new contact to the estimate.

Click the 'Create new contact' button

The 'Quick add contact' pop-out shown below will appear. 

To create a new customer; a first name, a last name and valid email address will need to be provided.

After filling out the customer's details, click the 'Add' button

This will close the 'Quick add contact' pop-out and apply the customer to the Estimate.

After adding the new contact to the Estimate, complete the Title, Reference (optional) and Summary (optional) sections of the invoice

Note: Tudodesk documents require a title to make them easily identifiable.

For this example, we have used "Omega Watch Repair" for the title, and  "Repair customers broken Omega watch and service" for the summary.

Note: References make it easier to link information and track invoices if they are available.

When you have completed the required fields you can click the 'Create deal' button shown below

Note: When you create a document in Tudodesk, a unique ID will be automatically generated. This important identifier allows you, your agents and your customers to easily find and reference documents.

Adding Items, Services and Charges to your Estimate

After creating the estimate you will be taken to the document edit screen where you can view your draft estimate. 

The next step is to list the charges for this estimate.

As you add charges to the estimate Tudodesk automatically calculates the line total, sales tax (if enabled) and estimate total for you.

Make sure that if you are charging sales tax, that this option is enabled and set in the company settings.

There are three easy ways to add charges to your estimate:

  1. Manually add custom items to the list. 

  2. Add existing items from your company price list by using the item search box. 

  3. Quick add new items to your company price list and add them onto the estimate via the quick add feature.

In this tutorial we will use option (1): Manually add custom items onto the list.

Click the + icon underneath the item list.

Enter a short description for the item, the net unit price, quantity and discount (%).

In this example we have added "Omega Dial" with unit price £195.00. 

Note: Tudodesk will by default set the quantity as one unit. 

We can now add the price of the dial to the estimate and add labour charges. 

We have filled out a new line titled 'Labour per hour' with unit price £32.50 and adjusted the quantity to the amount of hours spent, in this example two hours were spent.

Tudodesk has now correctly calculated the line total as £78.00.

All of the charges and costs for this estimate have now been completed.

The final step is to send the estimate to your customer for approval. 

The document life-cycle

At the top of the estimate document window you will see the status bar. The status bar highlights the current status of a document.

Note: New documents are always placed in 'draft' mode.

By clicking on the next step in the status bar you can update the document to the next step.

Note: The status' of documents are used to indicate which stage of process the the document is in. 

At the top left of the document page is the 'document action bar' 

Tudodesk will always offer the next chronological step in a documents life-cycle but this can be updated manually if needed.

The steps in an estimate's life-cycle are as follows:

Preview - Opens the document in the client portal for customer view
Send - Marks the estimate as sent and sends it to the customer

In this example, the estimate is ready to send to the customer so we have clicked the 'Send' Button.

After clicking 'Send', the document send window shown below will appear to confirm the invoice. 

To send the estimate, click the 'Update status to sent' button. 

Tudodesk now marks the document as 'Sent' and sends an e-mail to your customer with a link directly to the estimate in Tudodesk's customer portal where they can accept, reject or make use of the built-in live chat widget.

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