More with Estimates

You can do a lot more in the Estimates module of Zoho Invoice. You can send estimates as snail mail, share an estimate as a link, clone estimates, add comments and more.

Sending an Estimate as a Snail Mail

There are customers who prefer to receive the estimates as a snail mail. Zoho Invoice enables you to swiftly do it without any difficulty. As soon as you send it, the estimate will be sent as a postage to your customer’s address.

To send an estimate as a snail mail:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the estimate you wish to send as a snail mail.
3. Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the window and select Send Snail Mail.
   • Click Buy Credits if you haven’t bought credits earlier.
     OR
   • Click Send Snail Mail. Snail Mails sent within the US will be sent within 5 business days, and it will take 10 - 15 days to reach other countries.

Sharing Estimate as a Link

Zoho Invoice enables you to share an estimate as an URL/link to your customers. Your customers will be able to view their estimate by simple accessing the URL.

To share an invoice as a link:

1. Go to the Estimates module on the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the estimate you want to share using a link.
3. Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the window and select Share Estimate Link.

In the Visibility drop down choose either Public or Private & secure.

• Public - The estimate can be viewed by anyone who has got access to the link. You can set an expiration date for that link from the Link Expiration Date field. The estimate will not be available after the expiration date. After setting the expiration date, click Generate Link to generate the link. You can also disable all the active links by clicking Disable All Active Links button.

• Private & secure - The estimate will be sent via customer portal to customers and their contact persons. They can view it privately in their portals.

Marking an Estimate as Sent

An estimate will be marked as sent as soon as you send it to your customer. However, if haven’t sent the estimate as an email but would like to mark the estimate as sent, you can do so.

To mark an estimte as sent:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the draft estimate you wish to mark as sent.
3. Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the window and select Mark as Sent.

Immediately, the estimate will be marked as sent.

Marking an Estimate as Accepted or Declined

Your customers can accept or reject your estimate. If your customers have Customer Portal enabled for them, they can accept or decline estimates through the portal and the estimates will be automatically marked as Accepted or Declined in Zoho Invoice. If your negotiations with customer is via mail or some other channel, you can mark an estimate as accepted or declined in Zoho Invoice as soon as they accept or decline it.

To mark an estimate as Accepted or Declined:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the estimate you wish to mark as accepted or declined.
3. Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the window and select Mark as Accepted or Mark as Declined.

Cloning Estimates

You can create a duplicate copy of an estimate by cloning it. As soon as you clone, it will be open as a new estimate with the fields auto-populated with information from the previous estimate.

To clone an estimate:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the estimate you wish to clone.
3. Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the window and select Clone. Immediately, a new estimate creation page opens with auto-populated data from the previous estimate.
4. Edit the estimate and click Save as Draft or Save and Send.
   OR
5. Click Cancel to cancel cloning.

Deleting Estimates

Estimate can become obsolete when customers do not respond and you would want to delete them.

To delete an estimate:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the estimate you wish to clone.
3. Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the window and select Delete.
4. Click OK in the following pop-up to confirm your action.

Adding Comments to an Estimate

You can add comments to an estimate to record any important information relating to it which might help you in the future while you refer.

To add a comment:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Select the estimate to which you want to add a comment.
3. Click the + Add Comment text above the estimate and type your comment.
4. Check the Display in Customer Portal option, if you’ve enabled Customer Portal for your customer and want to display the comment in the Customer Portal.
5. Click Add Comment.

Exporting Estimates

If you want to store a copy of all the estimates separately, you can do that easily by exporting the estimates. You can export them in either CSV (Comma Separated Values) or XLS (eXceL Spreadsheet) formats.

To export estimates:

• Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
• Click the Hamburger icon and select Export Estimates or press alt + e to export them.

• If you want only specific fields of the estimate to be exported, you can specify them by clicking the dropdown under Fields in Export File and selecting + Add New to create a new template.

  • Enter a Template Name.
  • Click Add a New Field to select the fields that you want in the export file.
  • Also, you can edit the Field Name that will be displayed in the export file as you desire.
  • Click Save and Select.

  

• Select the format in which you want the estimates to be exported: CSV or XLS.

• Click Export and save the file in your device.

---

Bulk Actions

You can perform an action over a lot of estimates at a single attempt in Zoho Invoice. You can mark them as sent, download them as PDF, print them or delete them in bulk in Zoho Invoice.

• Marking Estimates as Sent
• Downloading Estimates as PDF
• Printing Estimates
• Deleting Estimates

Marking Estimates as Sent

To mark estimates as sent:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Check the draft estimates that you want to mark as sent.
3. Click the Mark as Sent button in the top bar to mark all the selected estimates as sent.

Downloading Estimates as PDF

To download estimates in PDF:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Check the estimates that you want to download as PDF.
3. Click the PDF icon in the top bar or press alt + d to download the selected estimates.
4. Choose an appropriate location and save them to yoru device.

Printing Estimates

To print estimates in bulk:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Check the estimates that you want to print.
3. Click the Print icon in the top bar or press alt + p to print the selected estimates.
4. Configure the print settings and click Print.

Deleting Estimates

To delete estimates in bulk:

1. Go to the Estimates module in the left sidebar or press shift + e to instantly navigate to the Estimates module.
2. Check the estimates that you want to delete.
3. Click the Trash icon in the top bar.
4. Click OK to delete the estimates.

---