Write and send a quote or estimate

Build a quote or estimate, send it to the customer, and track it through to accepted, declined or converted.

For office staffLast reviewed 3 October 2026

On this pageBefore you start

A quote or estimate is a priced document you send a customer before you invoice the job. Quotes and estimates share the same screens; choose which one you are writing when you start it.

Before you start

Only the owner, admins, dispatchers and office staff can create, edit or send quotes and estimates. Techs and contractors have no access to this money-facing area at all.
Emailing a quote or estimate to a customer is one step tighter: only the owner and admins can do it.

On an iPhone

Owners, admins, dispatchers and office staff can add the ONYX1 quotes widget. In phase A it shows the count of cold sent quotes and the age of the oldest one only. It does not show quote amounts, customer names or quote notes. Tap it to open Sales → Quotes at /sales?tab=quotes.

The widget is read-only and shows Updated h:mm am/pm in New Zealand time. If it is stale, open ONYX1 before relying on the count. Techs, contractors and site supervisors do not receive it.

Write a quote or estimate

Open Sales and select the Quotes or Estimates tab, then select New quote or New estimate.
Choose Document (Quote or Estimate) and select the Customer. Starting from a job locks the customer to that job's and links the two together.
Enter a Job summary title and, if useful, a Job description: the scope of works the customer sees. Add their own Customer reference if they gave you a PO or job number.
Add each line item.
Choose the GST treatment: Prices exclude GST (add 15%), Prices include GST (inclusive), or Zero-rated (no GST). Use Prices include GST when your entered prices already include GST. Use Zero-rated (no GST) only when the supply is zero-rated.
Add any Notes, then select Create quote or Create estimate.

If the quote is linked to a job, the linked job number appears in the quote screen. Quotes link to jobs, not directly to leads. If you are preparing a quote for work still tracked as a lead, open the lead details and copy its number for reference.

A quote or estimate can only be edited while it is a draft. Select Edit to change it, or Save changes once you have.

Select Print in a browser to open the quote or estimate PDF for printing. In the released Android app, the same action is labelled Share PDF and opens the device share sheet.

Find and open quotes

Open Sales and select Quotes or Estimates. The strip at the top shows Waiting on the customer (sent quotes with no answer, and their value excluding GST), Going cold in amber, Accepted, last 30 days (with how many are not on a job yet), and Win rate, last 90 days (accepted quotes as a share of all quotes accepted or declined in that time). Both count a quote on the day it was accepted or declined, whether the customer answered online or someone on your team recorded the answer. Linking a job to the quote later does not change that day. A reopened quote drops out of both until it is accepted or declined again. For a quote from Xero, the day is when the quote last changed in Xero at the time ONYX1 picked up the answer. Each figure that has a list behind it is a shortcut to it.

The filters are All, Draft, Sent, Going cold, Accepted and Declined. When some quotes are waiting for a job, a Not on a job filter appears too. Its count follows your search, so it is hidden when your search matches none of those quotes, unless you have it selected, when it stays with a count of 0. It shows accepted quotes that no job carries yet. Owners and admins also see here the quotes that came from Xero and are waiting for a job decision. Accepted, last 30 days counts New Zealand calendar days (today and the 29 before it), and the win rate counts the 90 days that end today in the same way. Search finds a quote by its number as printed (for example QU-0145), customer, reference or title. Owners and admins also see Archived, with the count, once something has been archived.

Select a quote to open it beside the list: where it is in its progress (Draft, Sent, Accepted or Declined, with dates), its line items and GST, and the buttons at the bottom. The filled button is the next step: Send for a draft, Follow up for a sent quote (it reopens the email panel), Create job for an accepted quote with no job, and Convert to invoice once it has a job. Link to job attaches an existing job instead. Download PDF and More sit alongside. More holds Convert to invoice (unless it is already the main button, and never on a declined quote), Copy customer link, Mark accepted, Reopen, Unmark as sent, Mark declined, Open full quote and, for owner and admins, Archive. Dispatchers and office staff cannot email, so their main button is Mark as sent for a draft and Mark accepted for a sent quote. New quote stays a full page.

Send it

Send emails it as a PDF from ONYX1, with an optional note. Only the owner and admins can do this. Dispatchers and office staff see Mark as sent instead.
Copy customer link (on the full quote page, Share with customer) gives you a link to send yourself. In a browser it is copied; in the released Android app, it opens the device share sheet. Sharing a draft also marks it Sent.
Mark as sent is for a quote you sent some other way (posted it, read it out over the phone) and want the pipeline to reflect.

Once a quote reaches Sent, ONYX1 emails the customer automatically: "You've received quote #…", with a button to open, read and accept or decline it online, no sign-in needed. The page shows the total including GST, the lines excluding GST, your notes and, if you have set one, your phone number. Accept quote asks the customer to confirm, showing the amount and "Nothing is charged now". Decline lets them add a reason, which comes back to you in the notification that tells you the quote was declined (and is kept in the audit log). It goes to the customer's contacts who are set to receive quotes (see Customer contacts and the client portal).

Track the answer

If the customer answers through their link, every business user is told, and the quote's status updates to Accepted or Declined.
If they answer you some other way, select Mark accepted or Mark declined yourself.
Reopen walks back an accepted or declined quote, returning it to Sent so it can be answered again. It does not go back to draft: the customer already has the document, so if the numbers need to change, write a new quote instead.
Unmark as sent takes a sent quote back to draft so you can fix it before resending. It does not un-notify the customer.

Going cold is a sent quote nobody has touched for two weeks.

Quotes from Xero

A quote that came from Xero carries a Xero badge. Only an owner or admin sees which Xero quotes are waiting for a job decision: those show Not on a job in amber (or Customer to confirm, if Xero did not say which customer it is for). They open the quote and, under More, select Match to job or Not for a job. If Xero did not say which customer the quote is for, Confirm the customer comes first: pick the customer, or create them first if they are not listed.

Convert to an invoice

Once a quote is accepted, select Convert to invoice (in the panel it is the main button once the quote has a job, and otherwise sits under More for any quote that is not declined) to create a draft invoice from it. From the panel you land on the new invoice in the Sales list. This also marks the quote Accepted if it was not already. See Invoice a job for what happens next.

If something goes wrong

This quote was already accepted, so it can’t be moved back to sent. A decided quote can only be reopened, not un-sent (use Reopen, or mark it accepted/declined again if you recorded the wrong answer).
That quote just changed. Reload and try again. Someone else updated it at the same time.
Only a draft quote can be edited. Unmark it as sent first, or use Reopen if it was already decided.
You don’t have permission to update quotes. You need the owner, admin, dispatcher or office role.