A quote sitting in someone’s inbox as a PDF needs a phone call to close. A quote they can approve with a button closes itself. ClippingCash quotes go out as a link to a page the customer opens in their browser, with no login and no app to install.
1 Send the quote
Build the quote as normal, then send it. Once it has gone out you can Resend quote while it is still Sent or Viewed, for the customer who lost the email. An approved or declined quote cannot be sent again, which is what stops you re-sending something already settled.
The customer gets an email with a link. Opening it flips the quote’s status to Viewed, so you can tell the difference between a quote nobody opened and a quote someone is thinking about.
2 What the customer sees
The page is titled Your Quote, or Your Recurring Service Quote if you quoted an ongoing plan rather than one-off work. Under it they get the quote details, the line items, and the total.
The wording adapts to what you sent. For a one-off job it says Approve this quote to confirm the one-time service details shown below. For a plan it says By approving this quote, you are approving the recurring service plan described below, which matters: a customer should know they are signing up for something ongoing rather than a single visit.
3 Optional add-ons and choices
Quotes can carry option groups, and this is the part worth using deliberately. Two kinds:
- Choose one presents a set of alternatives the customer picks between, shown as radio buttons. Good for tiers: standard cut, or cut plus edging, or the full package.
- Optional add-ons are extras the customer can tick individually. Good for mulch, gutter clearing, a one-off hedge trim.
Let the customer upsell themselves. An add-on they tick on a quiet evening is revenue you did not have to ask for on the phone.
4 They approve or decline
The buttons say Approve quote and Decline quote, or Approve recurring plan and Decline recurring plan for a plan.
If they want to, they can sign as they approve: type their full name, tick I agree to this quote and its terms and draw a signature. You can make that required. See how to get a quote signed.
On approval they see Thank you. Your quote has been approved, and the quote’s status becomes Approved on your side. On decline they get Your quote has been declined and the quote goes read-only.
Customer said yes on the phone or in person instead? Open the sent quote and click Mark as accepted. It goes through the same steps as the customer’s Approve button, so the quote becomes Approved and you can convert it, and the activity log records that a staff member accepted it. The owner, an admin or office staff can do this on a sent or viewed quote.
Either way, you hear about it straight away: an email to the account owner and a push notification on the owner app, plus a text if you have texting switched on. You do not need texting to get the alert.
5 The states the page can be in
The page tells the customer plainly why they cannot act, rather than showing dead buttons:
| State | What the customer is told |
|---|---|
| Already approved | This quote has been approved. No further action is needed. |
| Already declined | This quote has been declined and is now read-only. |
| Expired | This quote is expired and can no longer be responded to. |
| Already answered | A final response has already been submitted for this quote. |
Expiry is the one to pay attention to. A quote with an expiry date that passes cannot be approved even by a customer who wants to, and you will not always hear about it. Set expiry dates long enough to be realistic, and chase quotes in Sent or Viewed before they lapse.
6 Turn the approval into work
An approved quote can be converted. The button is Convert to Job for one-off work, or Convert to Recurring Plan if that is what was quoted. Converting sets the status to Converted, which closes the loop: you can filter your quote list by status and see exactly which approvals you have not yet turned into scheduled work.
That filter is the one to check weekly. An approved quote that never became a job is money the customer already said yes to.