Sending a quote or invoice in a reply

There are two ways to get a quote in front of a client, and they are both correct. The first is the Send to lead button in the quote editor, which sends a tidy standalone email. The second is to write a normal reply in the lead's conversation and drop the quote's link into it, so the quote arrives as part of the sentence you were already writing.

Most planners end up using the second one more, because most quotes go out in the middle of a conversation rather than as an announcement. This article covers that path: how to insert a link, what happens to the document when you send, and the one thing to know before you click.

The same button sits on invoices and proposals, and works the same way.

Insert into reply

Open a lead in the Leads inbox. Down the side of the thread you will see a card for each quote and each invoice on that lead. Each card carries two buttons that matter here:

• Open shows you the client's view of the document in a new tab. Use this to check what they are about to read.
• Insert into reply drops a link to that document into the reply you are writing, at the cursor.

So the working pattern is: start typing your reply, get to the point where you want to hand over the quote, click Insert into reply, and carry on typing. The link lands where the cursor was, not at the end, so you can put it mid-sentence.

What goes into the composer is a short marker rather than a raw web address. It renders as a proper link in the email the client receives, reading "View your quote Q-1043" or "View your invoice INV-1043". The client clicks it and lands on the same clean, read-only page they would have got from the standalone send, with no password to remember.

The button only appears once the document has a public link to give. A quote you have just started may not have one yet, and a link you have revoked is deliberately dead. In both cases the button is absent rather than broken.

Sending the reply issues the document

This is the part worth knowing before you click, because it is a real change and not a cosmetic one.

When you send a reply with a document's link embedded in it, 1pm looks at what you linked to and promotes it:

• A draft quote becomes Sent, and attaches itself to the lead. That is the same transition the quote editor's own Send to lead button makes.
• A draft invoice is issued. It moves to Sent, and it is queued for Xero if you have Xero connected.
• A draft proposal moves to Sent. Sending a proposal also sends any remaining draft quotes on that lead, because the proposal is the quote's delivery vehicle: the client accepts the quote from inside it.

The invoice case is the one that would hurt if it did not work this way. A public invoice page prints its own status, so a client opening a draft would read the word "Draft" on a document you just asked them to pay. Worse, the Pay now button only appears once an invoice is issued, so the payment path would be dead, and the invoice would never reach Xero. Issuing on send avoids all three, and leaves a lead-sent invoice in exactly the same state as one sent from the invoice page.

Already-sent documents are left alone, so re-sending someone a link they have lost is a no-op. Nothing is charged twice, and nothing changes status a second time.

The card updates itself in the thread the moment the reply goes, so you can see the new status without reloading.

Which path to use

Send to lead is the better choice when the quote is the whole message. It writes the email for you, so there is nothing to compose, and it is one click from the editor you are already in.

Insert into reply is the better choice when the quote is the answer to something. "Yes, we can do the 14th, and here is what that looks like" reads like a person. A standalone quote email arriving one minute after your reply reads like two robots.

Both leave the same record: the same email in the thread, the same document at Sent, the same entry in Checking what emails went out. There is no path here that logs less than the other.

If you get it wrong

A sent reply sits in a 15 second grace window before it actually leaves, with an Undo send button on the bubble. That is covered in Replying to leads, and it is the fastest fix for a typo or a wrong attachment.

Undo does not un-issue the document. If you embedded an invoice link and then undid the send, the invoice stays issued. That is deliberate: un-issuing something that may already have pushed to Xero causes more damage than leaving it issued, and the client never saw the email anyway. Fix the reply, send it again, and the already-sent invoice is skipped the second time round.

If you want the document itself undone rather than the email, that is a separate job. See Voiding a quote or invoice.

Related articles

• Quotes and invoices covers building the document in the first place, and the standalone Send to lead path.
• Replying to leads covers the composer itself: drafts, attachments, templates and Undo send.
• Sending a quote or invoice as a PDF covers attaching a real file rather than a link.
• Proposals covers the proposal builder, which is the third thing this button appears on.
• Sending invoices to Xero covers what happens after an invoice is issued.
• Getting paid covers the Pay now button that issuing switches on.