Letting a client adjust a quote

Most quotes are not one number. The client wants to know what six hours of coverage costs, and what ten costs. They want to know what the second shooter adds, or whether the Gold package is worth the step up from Silver. They are somewhere between 60 and 90 guests and will not know which until the RSVPs are in.

The usual answer is to send two or three near-identical quotes and let them pick. That works badly for everyone. You maintain three documents that have to stay in step, and the client ends up with three links in their inbox and no idea which one is live. Accept the wrong one and the event is built on the wrong figures.

An adjustable quote replaces all of that with one document. You set the limits, the client moves inside them, and the total updates as they go. What they accept is what gets billed.

Switching it on

The switch is in Account, then Tax & invoicing, as "Let clients adjust a quote". New accounts start with it on. If yours is off, the quote editor says so in the place the controls would be, with a link to the same page.

Having it on changes nothing on its own. It adds the controls to the quote editor, and nothing becomes adjustable until you say so on a particular quote. Quotes you have already sent are untouched.

Switch it off and every quote is a single fixed figure again.

What a client can change

A quantity range on a line. "Coverage, 6 to 10 hours". The client types a quantity into the Qty box, between your minimum and maximum, and the line total moves with it.

An optional extra. "Second shooter", "Ceremony musicians", "Late bar extension". The client ticks it on or off. You decide whether it starts ticked.

The guest count. One number above the lines that drives every line marked per person at once. Quote for 67, let them settle at 73, and the canapes, the mains and the beverage package all rescale together.

A per-person line with guests included in the price follows the same number, billing only the guests over it. "Up to 50 guests, then $250 each" quoted at 60 bills 10 extra guests; a client who settles at 73 is billed 23.

The guest count sits on the document rather than on each line, so the canapes cannot end up at 73 while the mains stay at 67.

The start time. "Booking starts at 6pm, and you can move it between 5pm and 8pm." The client picks a start inside your window and the document says when the booking starts and finishes. It sits above the lines with the guest count, because it belongs to the booking rather than to any one line.

The length of the booking is not set here. That is the quantity on the line you mark as the hours, so a client who changes coverage from six hours to ten moves the finish time with it.

A package. A named block of lines on the quote, usually one you added from your catalog. The client can switch an optional package on or off as a whole ("Engagement shoot"), or pick one package from a set of alternatives ("Silver, Gold or Platinum", "three courses or five"). There is more on packages below.

A pick from a set of lines. "Choose your backdrop" over eight backdrops, or "Choose 2 mains" over five dishes. The client picks the number you set, from cards that show each line's photo. A line can cost nothing (the backdrop is part of the booth hire) or carry its own price (a wagyu main at $8 a head more). There is more on sets below.

Setting the limits

Open the quote in the editor. Every line has a Client options section under its name. Click it to open it, and you get:

• Client can change the quantity. Tick it, then set From, to, and in steps of. Leave the step blank for 1. A range of 6 to 10 in steps of 0.5 gives half-hour increments; a range of 1 to 4 in steps of 1 gives whole units. The line's own quantity always sits inside the range: if it is outside when you set the range, or you later type a quantity outside it, it moves to the nearest figure the range allows and a message tells you.
• Client can add or remove this line. Tick it to make the line optional, and then Include it in the quote to start with decides whether the client's quote arrives with it on or off. Ticked, the line is in the quote and in the total and the client can take it out. Unticked, it is an extra shown with its price that only joins the total if the client picks it. An extra you expect most people to want should start on; a genuine upsell should start off.
• This line's quantity is how many hours the booking runs. From then on the document prints when the booking starts and finishes, counting the hours from the start time above the lines, so the times in the header follow the quantity the client enters.
• This line starts at a different time from the booking. Shown once the hours box is ticked. Leave it unticked and the line starts at the booking start above the lines; most quotes with one session never need it. Tick it and a Starts at field appears, showing the booking start it would otherwise use. Type a time ("10am", "2pm") and the line becomes its own session: the editor shows when it starts and finishes and how long it runs, and the panel above the lines names each line that starts at its own time. Untick it and the line goes back to the booking start. When a quote has more than one session, the client's quote prints each session's times and length under its line name, for example "10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (2 hours)". A photographer can quote a 10am getting-ready session for 2 hours and a 2pm ceremony and reception for 8 hours on one quote. The header then shows the whole booking, from the earliest start to the latest finish, and that is what goes on the booking in your calendar when the client accepts. A session with its own start stays where you put it when the client moves the booking start, and the line says so. If every hours line has its own start, the client's start time choice would change nothing, so the editor warns you rather than offering the client a picker that does nothing. If Booking starts at is blank when you give a line its own start, it fills in with the booking's current start time, so the lines without a start of their own keep counting from that time.
• Note shown to the client. Free text, up to 300 characters, printed under the item name on the client's quote. Use it to help them decide: "most weddings this size book 8 hours", "covers the ceremony only", "priced per hour after 11pm". Leave it blank and no note is shown.

A line marked per person does not get a range of its own. It follows the guest count, and the panel says so.

The guest count control sits above the lines: Client can change the guest count, with a minimum and a maximum. Set the bounds to something you can actually deliver. The kitchen and the room capacity are the real limits, so the quote should carry them. If you leave the maximum blank, the client can go up to the capacity of the lead's or booking's Space, and where that Space has no capacity, up to ten times the guest count you quoted.

The booking times sit beside it:

• Booking starts at. Type the time however you say it out loud. "6pm", "745pm" and "1930" all land as 6:00 PM, 7:45 PM and 7:30 PM, the same as the lead form and the run of show / runsheet. Leave it blank and the quote uses the time already on the booking.
• Client can change the start time. Tick it, then set From, to, and in steps of in minutes (30 if you leave it blank). Both ends are needed before the client gets a picker: a start time moves no money, so an open-ended window would hand out a dawn start for free. While only one end is filled in, the panel says the window is not live yet and the quote just shows the fixed start.

Small badges appear beside any line that has something switched on, so a long quote can be scanned for what is open without opening every panel: Client can change the quantity, either Client can remove or Client can add depending on which way the line starts, and Sets the booking times on each line that carries hours.

Set the options before you send. Like everything else on a quote, the options are frozen the moment it goes out, so the client cannot have the offer changed underneath them. To change what is on offer after sending, copy the quote to a new one (a copy keeps the offer it made) and send that. Raising an invoice from a quote drops the options, because an invoice is the record of what was agreed.

Setting them once, on the item

If the same line carries the same offer on every quote, save the options on the catalog item instead of building them again each time. An item in Items (opens in 1pm in a new tab) has its own Client options panel with the same controls (the quantity range, the optional extra, the hours line and the note), and every line built from that item arrives on a quote already offering them. While "Let clients adjust a quote" is off, the panel is hidden but each item keeps the options saved on it, including when you edit the item, so they are still there when you switch the setting back on.

They are a starting point, not a rule: open the line's own panel and change anything you like for this one client. Editing the item later does not reach back into quotes already built from it. See Your items catalog and packages.

Packages the client picks

Every package on a quote has its own Package options section under its heading, marked with the package icon. Click it to open it. It offers three settings:

• Always included. The package is part of the quote and the client cannot remove it. Every package starts here.
• Client can add or remove this package. The whole package becomes optional, with one tick for all of its lines. Include it in the quote to start with works the same way as it does on a line: ticked, the package is in the total and the client can take it out; unticked, it is an extra shown with its price that joins the total only if the client picks it.
• One of several packages the client picks from. The package joins a set of alternatives. The client sees every package in the set with its price and picks exactly one. They can switch between them but cannot pick none.

To build a set of alternatives:

1. Add each package to the quote. The quickest way is Add from items, where a catalog package drops in with its lines under its own heading.
2. Open Package options on the first package, choose One of several packages the client picks from, and type the heading the client sees above the set, for example "Choose your coverage". Left blank, the heading reads "Choose one".
3. On each of the other packages, choose the same option and pick that set from the Set list.
4. Choose the package the quote should open on from Picked to start, in the panel of any package in the set. That is the package the total uses until the client switches. A set always starts on exactly one package.

A set with only one package in it reads as an ordinary package until a second one joins, and the panel says so.

A package with no items in it isn't shown to the client, and the panel warns you. If you empty the package a set starts on, the set starts on the first package that still has items.

Each package can still carry line options of its own. A package can have an optional line inside it, a quantity range, or a line marked as the hours. That last one is what makes packages work for anything sold by the hour: give Silver a 6 hour coverage line, Gold 8 and Platinum 10, mark each one as the hours, and the finish time on the quote follows whichever package the client picks.

A quote can hold more than one set, for example a coverage set and a separate album set, and optional packages alongside them.

Badges on the package heading show what each package offers without opening the panel: Client can remove or Client can add on an optional package, Client picks one of and the number of packages in the set (with its heading, if you typed one) on an alternative, and Picked to start on the package the quote opens on.

Items the client picks from a set

A set is a number of lines the client picks from, when the choice is between items rather than between whole packages. A photo booth offers eight backdrops and the client picks one. A caterer's set menu offers five mains and the client picks two. The lines sit on the quote like any other line, and the set decides how many of them the client ends up with.

To build a set:

1. Add the lines to the quote. Lines added from Items (opens in 1pm in a new tab) bring their photos with them, and the photos are what make a set easy to choose from.
2. Open Client options on the first line and choose Start a new set with this line under Client picks this from a set.
3. On each of the other lines, choose the set from the same list, or drag the line onto the set's box and drop it there. It reads, for example, "Add to: Choose one (1 line, client picks 1)".
4. The set's lines now sit together in one box, with the set's name running down a grey strip on its left and a header at the top showing how many the client picks. A new set opens its settings straight away; otherwise click Edit set. Type the Set name, which the client sees as the heading above the set ("Choose your backdrop"), and set Client picks to how many they choose. Tick Can pick fewer if picking fewer is fine ("pick up to 3 canapes"); leave it unticked and the client picks exactly that many.
5. Tick Picked to start on the lines the quote should open with. On a set where the client picks one, ticking a line moves the start to it.

Price the lines the way the choice actually works:

• Nothing extra. Give the lines a price of $0, and put the charge on a separate line outside the set: $900 of photo booth hire, then eight $0 backdrops. The client's pick changes what they get, not what they pay, and the quote shows "Included" on each card.
• An upgrade. Give one line a price of its own: a wagyu main at $8 a head more than the others. Picking it adds its price to the total, at the client's guest count when the line is charged per person.

A set lives inside one package, or among the loose lines, so its lines stay together on the quote. Moving a line to another package takes it out of its set. A line in a set is only ever something the client picks, so it can't also be an optional extra, carry a quantity range, or set the booking's hours. Putting a line in a set switches those off.

A set with one line reads as an ordinary line, and counts in the total like one, until a second one joins. The panel says so. If a set asks for more picks than it has lines, the client picks as many as there are.

If you offer the same choice on every quote, save it on a catalog package instead: the package's items can be put in a set on the Items page, and the set arrives built on every quote the package is added to. See items the client picks from, inside a package.

Drag the set by its grey strip to move it among the other lines, or drag a line by its own handle to reorder it within the set. A Picked to start badge marks the lines the quote opens with.

Sets and packages work together. A photo booth package can be an optional package with a set of backdrops inside it; if the client leaves the package off, the backdrops go with it and nothing about them holds up the accept.

What the client sees

To see it for yourself, click Preview as client at the top right of the What the client can change box in the quote editor. It opens the client's page in a new tab, with a notice that you are viewing it as your client and that nothing you click there is saved. The link appears once the quote is on a lead or has been sent.

The client opens their quote link. An adjustable quote looks like a quote, with a few differences:

• A Guest count box above the lines, with your range printed beside it ("50 to 120 guests").
• A Qty box in the quantity column on any line you opened up, marked with a pulsing orange dot, with the range printed underneath ("Enter 1 to 10"). A quantity typed outside the range is moved to the nearest one inside it. Where your step is anything other than 1, the step is printed too, with an example ("Steps of 0.25, e.g. 1.25"). Clicking the box selects the number in it, ready to type over.
• A tick beside the name of any optional line.
• A Start time picker above the lines when you opened the start up, with your window printed beside it, and the booking's start and finish printed on the document itself once a line is marked as the hours.
• Each package in its own box, with a dark grey strip down its left, its name and subtotal across the top and its lines inside. A set of lines inside a package sits as a smaller box within it, with a lighter grey strip.
• For a set of alternatives, the set's heading, then each package with a round button beside its name and its own subtotal on the heading row, so the client can compare them without adding lines up. The packages they have not picked stay on the page, faded, with their prices showing.
• A tick beside the name of an optional package, with the package's subtotal beside it, or "Not included" while it is switched off.
• For a set of lines, one box with a grey strip down its left, holding the set's heading and how many to pick ("Choose one", "Choose 2", "Choose up to 3"), then a card for each line with its photo, its name and description, and its price or "Included". The cards sit side by side while the descriptions are short. If any line in the set has a long description (more than about 160 characters, or more than four lines), each line takes the full width of the quote instead, with its price at the right, so a detailed package description stays readable. A set of names and prices only, with no photos or descriptions, fits four across. The client taps a card's round button (pick one) or tick box (pick several) to choose it, and taps the photo to see it larger. On a set of more than one, the heading counts how many they have chosen. If they try to pick one more than the set takes, the heading asks them to untick one first, and if they have picked fewer than the set needs it says how many more to choose.
• A Total hours figure above the subtotal on a quote with more than one session, adding the sessions up. It answers a question the header cannot: a quote with a 9am session of 2 hours and a 2pm session of 5 hours has a header reading 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM, which is a ten hour window over seven hours of work. It follows the quantities the client enters, and it prints on the PDF too. A quote with a single session does not show it, because the length is already beside the times in the header.

Every change re-prices the whole document immediately: subtotal, tax, service charge, gratuity and the total, all the way down. There is no "calculate" button and nothing to submit.

The controls are there while the quote is a draft or sent. Once you mark it accepted or declined, the client sees the quote as it stands and can no longer change it. The exceptions are the guest count and the hours, which you can leave open until final numbers are due: see Final numbers below.

A declined extra stays on the page, faded, with "Not included" where its price would be, so the client can add it back. It is not priced, not taxed, and it is not billed.

The limits are enforced by 1pm, not by the browser. Every quantity, guest count and start time that arrives is checked against your range before it is priced, so a client cannot end up with a quantity you did not offer.

The PDF the client downloads, and the print view, both show what they have currently configured, so they cannot end up holding a PDF that quotes a different total from the page they were looking at. The PDF lists only the priced lines: printing extras they have already declined would read as though they were still on the table.

A set of alternatives is the exception. Until the quote is accepted, the PDF and the print view list every package in the set with its subtotal, and mark the one currently picked "(chosen)". The total is the chosen package's. That way a PDF forwarded to a partner still shows the whole offer. Once the quote is accepted, only the package they chose prints.

A set of lines prints the same way on the PDF and the print view: the set's heading, every line in it, the picked ones marked "(chosen)", and "Not chosen" in place of the amount on the others. Once the quote is accepted, only the picks print.

When they accept

Accepting resolves everything at once and builds the booking from what they chose, not from what you first offered.

A quote with a set the client hasn't finished can't be accepted. If they click Accept quote having picked one main from a "Choose 2 mains" set, the quote comes back with a note naming the set to finish, and nothing is booked until they do. You can still Mark accepted yourself, for when they give you the answer on the phone. The confirm box names each set they left short, and accepting locks their picks as they are, so add or remove lines on the pricing sheet afterwards if they told you something different.

Once they accept:

• The event's pricing sheet is seeded from their quantities, their guest count applied to every per-person line, and their declined extras absent entirely. Only the package they picked from each set is copied, only the lines they picked from each set of lines, and an optional package they left off is not copied at all. An extra or a package somebody said no to can never be billed by accident.
• The guest count they agreed lands on the event as the guaranteed pax, so the BEO, the kitchen and the reports all count against the figure that was actually agreed, with nobody retyping it.
• The agreed start and finish land on the booking when a line is marked as the hours, so the calendar, the run of show and everyone working from them show the times that were actually agreed rather than the ones you first drafted. A booking that runs past midnight rolls the finish onto the next day.
• What they chose lands on the booking as Client selections: each set's heading and their picks, like "Choose your backdrop: Floral wall" or "Choose 2 mains: Chicken, Fish", and the package they picked from each set of packages. It shows on the booking page, on the BEO, and on the crew's briefing and printout, so the kitchen and the crew work from the client's answer without opening the quote. Clients change their minds, so each selection has Edit and Remove, and you can Add one the quote didn't cover, like a cake flavour. Editing a selection changes no prices: if a change costs more or less, update the booking's pricing too. If you unaccept the quote and the client accepts it again, their new answer replaces the selections that quote wrote, and ones you added by hand stay.
• The totals are frozen onto the quote at that moment. That is the one time a configured quote's reportable figure is written.

Until they accept, every report keeps showing your own figure, because a client who is still changing quantities has agreed to nothing.

After they accept, the figure they built is what shows: on the Quotes report, in the quote list, and in the Booking Portal card on the lead. All three read the same number.

Final numbers

Most bookings are accepted long before the client knows exactly how many are coming, or how much coverage they really need. Final numbers let them settle the guest count and the hours themselves, up to a date you choose, instead of emailing them to you to retype.

Turning it on. In Account, then Tax & invoicing, set Final numbers due before event, for example 14 days. Every quote that offers a guest count, or an hours line with a quantity range, puts that date on its booking when it is accepted. Leave it blank and both are fixed when the quote is accepted.

Moving the date for one booking. The booking's Pricing page shows Final numbers due under its confirmations. Type a new date ("fri 9 oct") and click Save date, or clear it to stop changes on that booking.

What the client can do. Once they have signed, their booking page shows a Guest numbers box with the date it closes. As they type a number, the page shows what the booking would come to. Update my booking makes the change. The number can go up to the most your quote allows, and never below the number they booked.

Hours. When the line marked as the booking's hours has a quantity range, the booking page also shows an Hours box. The client can move the hours up or down anywhere inside your range, on your step, and the page shows the new total and the new finish time before they click Update hours. The start time stays where it is: a client can't move it after accepting, because the hours you offered were set against that start and whatever you have booked after it. The finish moves by the hours the client adds or takes off, so time you added to the finish yourself stays: a 6pm to 11:30pm booking on a 5-hour line, cut to 4 hours, finishes at 10:30pm. If you move the start yourself on the event, the finish stays counted from your new start. If you change an hours line on the pricing sheet to a figure outside its range, or split it or remove it, the Hours box no longer shows, and the hours are yours to change. If the new finish would run into another booking in the same Space, the change is refused and the client is asked to contact you. A clash the booking already had (blocked time you put over it, for example) doesn't count, only one the extra hours make. Fewer hours can't take the total below what the client has already paid or been invoiced on a deposit or progress invoice: the change is refused, and you get a bell and an email saying what they asked for, so you can make it yourself and refund or credit the difference if you agree. When the page has both boxes, the guest count button reads Update guest numbers.

What a change does. Every per-person line that came from the quote follows a new guest count, and the hours line follows new hours, on the event's pricing sheet, on the signed confirmation and on any draft invoice copied from them, each at its own price and tax. Lines you added or edited yourself are left alone. The guaranteed pax on the event and the BEO follow a new guest count, and the event's finish time follows new hours. Crew call times, access and vacate times and the run of show do not move, so check them when the hours change. Deposit and progress invoices already issued keep their amounts, a progress payment set as a percentage and not yet invoiced follows the new total, and the balance invoice bills from the updated pricing sheet.

You are told every time. Each change rings your bell and emails you, for example "Sarah Chen changed their guest numbers from 60 to 73" or "Sarah Chen changed their hours (Photography coverage: 6 to 4 hours)", with the total before and after, and it is logged in the lead's thread. The Pricing page lists every change under Changes made by the client.

When it closes. The box disappears once the date passes, once a balance invoice (or one invoice for the full amount) has been issued, or if the booking is cancelled or completed. A client who pays the whole booking before the date has one invoice for the full amount, so their numbers are set too: their booking page tells them so and asks them to contact you to change anything. It only appears on a booking whose quote offered a guest count or an hours range and was built into the pricing sheet when it was accepted. An hours line you have since set outside the quote's range on the pricing sheet is yours, and is not offered to the client. The Hours box is not offered on a booking in a program.

You are told what moved

When a client accepts a quote they adjusted, a plain account of what changed is written into the lead conversation, and a one-line version goes into the notification subject, so the bell entry says the booking changed without you having to open the thread to find out that it did. It reads something like:

They adjusted the quote before accepting it:

Guest count: 67 to 73

Package: Gold to Platinum

Coverage: 6 to 10

Added: Second shooter

Total: $4,200, now $6,150

A moved start time is listed the same way ("Start time: 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM"), and when the booking's own times moved, a line underneath says so: "The booking now runs 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM the next day, and the event has been updated to match." It is spelled out because it changes your calendar as well as your bill.

Guest count comes first, because it affects the most. A switched package comes next, as one line naming the package they started on and the one they picked, rather than a list of every line in both. An optional package they added or removed reads like an extra: "Added: Engagement shoot". The total is given as before and after, because "now $6,150" on its own leaves you to remember what it was.

When something that moves the day moved, and not just the bill, whether that is the hours, the guest count, the start time or a switch to a different package, a line is added underneath:

Check what depends on this: crew call times, access and vacate, and what the kitchen is counting on.

1pm does not update your operational plans for you. Moving photography from six hours to ten changes call times, access and vacate, and what the kitchen is counting on. 1pm tells you the booking changed; updating those is yours to do.

Swapping an optional extra changes the bill rather than the schedule, so it does not add that line.

A quote the client did not adjust produces no summary.

Unaccepting

Unaccepting a quote unlocks the client's choices, so they can change them again on their quote link.

Their choices survive, so it reopens on what they chose rather than back at your original figures. The frozen totals are cleared, because nothing is agreed any more and the reports have to stop saying it is.

If the quote and the pricing sheet stop agreeing

There is one path worth knowing about, and it is not specific to adjustable quotes: unaccept, change something, re-accept.

When you accept a quote onto an event whose pricing sheet already has charges on it, the sheet is left as it is, so nothing added since is lost and billed lines stay marked as billed. So the quote can end up saying one figure while the sheet says another, and the sheet is what invoices and confirmations are priced from.

When it is the client who accepts in this situation, from their quote link, 1pm does not raise a confirmation or take them on to sign and pay, because that confirmation would be priced from the sheet's earlier charges. The client sees "Quote accepted" and that you will confirm the booking and send the details. The acceptance in the lead's thread and your notification both say the sheet kept its earlier charges: update the sheet, then use Raise confirmation on the booking's Billing page and send it.

The quote page says so, and offers to replace the whole sheet with the quote's lines. That offer is refused once anything points at the sheet, and it names which of the two is in the way:

• Some of these charges have already been billed on an invoice.
• A payment has already been recorded against the event.

In either case, edit the lines that changed instead. A confirmation whose frozen pricing has drifted from the sheet flags it the same way, worded by status: replace an unsigned one, and leave a signed one alone, because it is the record of what was actually agreed.

What an adjustable quote does not do

An approval step. There is no "the client has requested changes, approve or decline" queue. The bounds you set are the approval. If you would not sign off on ten hours, do not offer ten hours.

Anything on invoices or confirmations. Options are a quote-stage idea only.

Discounts, prices or the date. The client can change quantities, extras, packages, the guest count, and the start time inside the window you set. They cannot touch your unit prices, your tax treatment, or the date the event falls on.

A quote that covers several dates has a section for each day, and each day carries its own times. Lines inside a day can still be adjustable or optional. The guest count for the whole quote, the start time the client can move and the booking-hours line are not available on it, because each of them describes a single booking.

When their choices fall under your minimum

If the Space carries a minimum spend, an adjustable quote is the one place the client is told about it. Wind the guest count down far enough, or switch enough extras off, and a note appears on their copy naming the minimum and what their selection currently comes to.

They can still accept. The note tells them their selection is below your minimum. It does not stop them. Your own copy carries the same shortfall afterwards, with a button to add the difference as a line before you invoice anything.

Related

• Quotes and invoices covers the editor itself, sending, and what each stage means.
• Pricing an event covers the pricing sheet the accepted quote seeds.
• Your items catalog and packages covers saving these options on an item so every quote starts with them.
• Proposal templates covers the branded online page a quote can sit inside.
• Quote expiry dates covers the validity window and what a client sees after it.