Send an estimate and follow it to a decision

An estimate starts as a draft, goes out to the customer by email, and ends in a decision: accepted, declined, or expired if nobody answered in time.

Create and send it

On the web, open Estimates and start a New Estimate; in the Zaras app, open Work, switch to Estimates and tap New estimate. Choose the customer, add line items, and set the valid-until date. When it is ready, use Send estimate on the estimate; on the web this opens an email you can adjust before it goes, in the app the Send Estimate screen. The customer gets an email with a link to a page where they can read the estimate, pick any optional add-ons, and accept or decline it; they cannot sign anything there.

If you sent the estimate some other way — you handed it over in person, or sent it from your own email — use Mark as sent (Mark estimate as sent in the app) instead, so its status matches reality. It changes the status only and sends nothing. When you are waiting on an answer, Send reminder emails the customer again.

What the statuses mean

• Draft — not sent yet. This is the only status in which the whole estimate can still be edited.
• Sent — with the customer, waiting for a decision. You can still change its wording, its valid-until date, its schedule and technicians in both apps; line items, pricing, the customer and the address are locked — create a revision to change those.
• Accepted / Declined — the customer answered, or you recorded their answer with Record decision (Mark as accepted or Mark as declined). The money on an accepted or declined estimate is fixed; only its wording can still change — its title, description, message to client, contract text and internal notes.
• Expired — a Sent estimate whose valid-until date has passed with no decision recorded. Expiry is read from that date in your workspace's time zone, so an estimate can read as expired before anything is written down; some estimates also carry expired as their stored status. A draft that sits past its date is not expired.
• Superseded — you created a newer revision of it. It cannot be edited or sent again.

After the decision

• Accepted: Create job or Create invoice (Convert to job / Convert to invoice in the app). Nothing happens automatically: an accepted estimate does not create a job, an invoice, or a calendar entry by itself.
• Declined or expired: the exits (a late decision, Extend & resend, Create revision) are in After the decision — that article, not this one, answers "what now" once the customer has replied or the date has run out.

Working with estimates is part of the jobs, contacts, estimates, invoices and calendar set of permissions that owners, admins and technicians hold by default. If Send estimate is not available to you, ask an owner or admin to grant estimates to your role.