The Proposals App program will automate the process of getting your customers to receive and accept engagement letters.
In this article, we will cover:
Create a Proposal
To create a proposal, you can either select ⊕ New on the Proposals app, or click ⊕ New on the Proposals app ribbon when viewing a contact.
This will take you to the New Proposals screen which shows the four sections which need to be set up.
Note: A notification banner will show stating "Payment gateway is not setup," if, you do not have a payment gateway setup. You can either set up a payment gateway, or turn off this notification in the Proposals app preferences.
New Proposal - General
On the first screen, General, you set up the details and the recurrence of your proposal.
Proposal Name - given name for the proposal to identify it in the proposals list.
Customer - The customer synced from QuickBooks who will be invoiced.
Contact - The related contact to the customer who will receive the email and approve of the proposal.
Assigned To - The Method user who is assigned to this proposal.
Terms - The terms given for paying the invoice.
Start Date - When the agreement with the customer will start.
End Date - When the agreement will end.
Recurrence Frequency - How often the customer will be billed. At the moment, there is only one option, which is Monthly.
Recurring Day of Month - The day in the month the recurring invoice will be sent out. Selecting Last Day of Month will send the invoice out on the last day of the month.
When you are done, click Save & Next to go to the next section. The proposal will be saved so you can return to it later.
New Proposal - Services
The Services section lets you add the services you will provide to the customer. Each can have a different billing types, depending on the service provided.
These services are synced from the Products and Services you specified within QuickBooks Online. For those on QuickBooks Desktop, it's pulled from your Items list.
To add a service, click in the grid and choose from the dropdown. When a service is selected, you can edit the details of the service.
For each service, you can choose the Billing Type:
When Accepted - Customer is invoiced when they accept the proposal.
Recurring - Customer is invoiced on a recurring basis as defined earlier.
Not Invoiced - Customer is not invoiced.
When Completed - Customer is invoiced when you set the proposal to completed.
To add more services, click on an empty row in the grid. If there are no more empty rows, click Add lines to add more rows.
Example with multiple Billing Types
If your services have multiple billing types, for example:
Item | Amount | Billing Type |
Item one | $500 | When Accepted |
Item two | $100 | Recurring |
Item three | $100 | Recurring |
Item four | $100 | Recurring |
Customer will be immediately be billed for $500.
Item one is set to When Accepted.Thereafter, the customer will be billed $300 each month.
Item two, three, and four are set to Recurring.
Once you have added all the services you want for this proposal, click Save & Next.
New Proposal - Terms
The Terms screen lets you select an Engagement Letter template.
There is a sample template which you can use, however, you can create your own template by expanding the dropdown field and selecting the Add / Edit Template link.
If you do create your own template, make sure to utilize the following merge fields:
Proposal.ContactsName
Proposal.Customer
Proposals.ServiceSummary
Proposals.ServicePriceSummary
Proposal.StartDate
Proposal.EndDate
Company.CompanyName
New Proposal - Send
On this final screen, you can review the proposal you are about to send. An email will be sent out to your contact, and you have the option to add a personalized message to the email.
When you are happy with the proposal, select Preview & Send. You will be shown the email that will be sent before sending it off.
NOTE: Once you send your email, the proposal will be saved and you will not be able to edit the details anymore.
If the customer is happy with the proposal, they can accept it, via a private customer portal which is sent to them in the email. They can also immediately pay the invoice if you have your payment gateway set up.
Activate the Engagement with Customer Approval
If you do not need the customer's approval and wish to activate the proposal without sending an email, expand the Actions button and select Active Engagement.
Your proposal has now been created.
Note: For recurring invoices, you can also have recurring payment. For more information, please see our article on how to Edit a Proposal.