Estimates & approvals

The estimate flow exists to answer one question with a paper trail: did the customer agree to this work at this price?

Estimates build right inside the ticket: open the ticket and pick the Estimate tab in the composer (marked 1). Need more room? The builder expands into a full-screen editor with one click.

Building an estimate

On the ticket, open the money section and build the estimate from line items, parts (pulled from inventory, with prices attached), labor, and discounts. The same line-item editor is used everywhere money appears, so there’s one habit to learn.

Sending and approval

Send the estimate and the customer gets it in their portal link, where they can approve or decline in one tap. The decision lands on the ticket with a timestamp and the estimate version they saw.

That recorded approval matters:

• Work doesn’t start on a verbal maybe
• “I never agreed to that” has a documented answer
• Scope changes get their own approval, revise the estimate and re-send; the portal always shows the current version, and history stays on the ticket

From estimate to invoice

An approved estimate converts to an invoice in one step, line items carry over, nothing is retyped. Pair this with a status automation (e.g., entering Approved notifies the bench) and the workflow runs itself.

Recommended workflow

Diagnose → build estimate → send (status: Waiting approval) → customer approves from their phone → ticket moves to In repair → convert to invoice when done

The gap between “estimate sent” and “approved” is where repairs die in most shops. Because approval is one tap from a text on their phone, not a callback during business hours, that gap shrinks from days to minutes.

What the customer sees when they approve

Recorded from a real portal link: the customer signs and approves the estimate.

The estimate opens as a clean document from their portal link. To approve, the customer types their full name, draws a signature, and agrees to your terms, then the approval records on the ticket with a timestamp.

The confirmation keeps the signature with the estimate, which is exactly what lands in the case file if a dispute ever happens.