One path runs the whole business: lead → measure → estimate → signed contract → job → bill → collect. Each step hands the next one everything it needs, so nothing is typed twice.
Lead To Estimate
A lead is a prospect you're chasing. It lives in Pipeline, in the Sales group of the rail and on the iPhone tab bar. Leads arrive by hand, from your estimate request form, from other lead sources, or from a call, and they route to the right market automatically by the job site's ZIP.
When a lead becomes real work, convert it. The customer record is created and the lead's history follows it. From the customer or the job you start a measure, and the drawing you produce is what the estimate is built from — the takeoff turns measured area into quantities, and the price book turns quantities into money.
- Leads live in Pipeline (List, Board, Inbox, and Work the list).
- Converting a lead creates the customer and carries the history over.
- Takeoff converts the drawing into estimate quantities.
- Price book items supply the rates.
Pro tip: Respond to a new lead within the hour. Speed to contact wins more jobs than any other single habit, and the Call Sheet ranks your follow-ups so the hottest one is always on top.
Estimate, Proposal, Contract — One Document
There is only one priced document, and it is called what it currently is. While you're pricing it, it's a Proposal in draft. Once you send it, it's the Proposal awaiting a yes. The moment the customer signs, that same document becomes the Contract — binding, locked, and read-only.
There is no separate contract to write. The signed proposal IS the agreement. A job carries exactly one live agreement plus the sum of its approved change orders; any other approved estimate on the job is explicitly filed as Superseded, Not Selected, or rolled into a change order, so two documents never both claim to be the deal.
- Draft and Sent read as Proposal; Approved reads as Contract.
- Signing locks pricing — a contract cannot be edited.
- One job = one agreement + approved change orders.
- Alternatives are filed as Not Selected, never left ambiguous.
Signature To Job
A signature is the pivot. It locks the pricing, creates the payment schedule, drafts the deposit invoice, and moves the work into Jobs. The deposit is sent automatically only if you turned that on in Settings, Getting paid, Invoices & terms.
The job carries the drawing, the crew, the schedule, the budget, the paperwork, and the message thread with the customer. Stages advance the work: New → Proposal → Approved → Scheduled → In Progress → Punch List → Closeout → Completed.
- Signing creates the payment schedule and drafts the deposit.
- Nine job stages, from New through Completed.
- Everything about the work hangs off the job record.
Bill And Collect
Billing happens through one door: you bill a job. What you have asked for is the billed amount; what has arrived is collected. The two are never conflated, so the job's financials read as a straight waterfall — contract, invoiced, collected, margin.
Unpaid balances roll up in Money: aging buckets, a collections worklist ordered worst-first, promises to pay, and per-customer balances across all of that customer's jobs. Customers can pay from their project page, and payments apply back to the invoice automatically.
- Billed = what you asked for. Collected = what arrived.
- One billing door: bill the job.
- Receivables roll up per customer across all their jobs.
- Change orders adjust the contract total when approved.
Pro tip: Never do extra work without an approved change order. An approved change order adjusts the contract total automatically — an unapproved one is work you did for free.