Here's how to send an estimate you've created, to a client.
Open the estimate by clicking on it from the All Estimates screen.
Saving the estimate as a .pdf
You can choose to save the estimate as a .pdf for printing or for sending as an e-mail attachment from your own e-mail programme. Alternatively, you can send it by e-mail directly from within FreeAgent.
To save the estimate as a .pdf, click the Save as PDF button...
...and choose where on your computer to save this file so that you can browse to it again when it's needed.
E-mailing the estimate directly
To e-mail the estimate from within FreeAgent, click Send by Email.
Here's what you'll see if you click Send by E-mail.
From / To
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see a series of tags that you can use to build your e-mail.
In the From box, you can choose from any of your users' e-mail addresses. You may need to set someone up as a new user.
And tick the "Email a copy to the sender" box to choose whether you want to receive a copy of the e-mail into the inbox of the person whose address is in the From box.
In the To box, if you've already entered an e-mail address for this client on the Contacts screen, you'll see that here, but you can overtype it. If you haven't put in an e-mail address for the client, then the To box will be blank and you'll need to enter a valid e-mail address. You can enter multiple e-mail addresses here if you need to, separated by commas.
If you put "[contact_billing_email],[contact_email]" in the To field, the e-mail will go out assuming that the contact has one or other of the e-mail addresses entered, and if you use the tag [billing_or_contact_email] in the To field, then if you've put in a billing e-mail address that will be used, but if there's no billing e-mail, FreeAgent will use the contact's main e-mail address.
Subject
The Subject field is filled in automatically for you, giving your company's name and the estimate number. But you can overtype this field if you want the e-mail to have a different subject.
Attach files
You can also send other files, such as your terms and conditions, as attachments to this e-mail.
To do this, click the Attach Files link.
This brings up a list of the files you have so far uploaded to FreeAgent's Files area. Tick the box(es) next to the file(s) you want to upload and click Attach Selected.
You can also upload more files here.
Body text
Into the Message box, type the text for the body of the e-mail.
Preview and send
Below the Send E-mail button, there's a fully functional preview of the estimate, so that you can double-check it before you send it and even edit it and add more items to it.
Once you're happy with the estimate, click Send E-mail to send it out, or Cancel to close the screen without sending it.
FreeAgent will then send the e-mail for you, with the estimate as a .pdf attachment.
The estimate's status will automatically be changed to Sent once this has happened (please note that clicking Mark as Sent does not send an estimate). You can see a summary of when the estimate was sent and whether it was delivered successfully by looking underneath the estimate.
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