Proposals and PDFs

Every estimate in CleanEstimate Pro can be turned into a professional PDF proposal. The system generates PDFs automatically when you preview or send an estimate. Customers also get a web-based proposal link where they can view, accept, or decline.

PDF Preview

On the review step of any estimate wizard, click Preview to open a PDF preview in a new tab.

The preview renders the full proposal exactly as the customer will see it. Use this to catch formatting issues, pricing errors, or missing information before sending.

What the PDF Includes

Each PDF proposal contains the following sections:

For commercial building and fleet proposals, the default terms now come from Admin > Commercial > Settings whenever the proposal-level custom terms box is left blank. That keeps the office on one shared editable source instead of a hidden PDF-only fallback.

PDF Variants

CleanEstimate Pro generates different PDF layouts depending on the estimate type:

• Residential -- standard service-based layout with property details.
• Commercial -- includes multi-option pricing and site condition notes.
• Commercial Building -- shows surface-level line items and building-specific details.
• Fleet -- lists vehicle types, counts, and per-unit pricing. Seasonal fleet PDFs now break pricing into the standard cadence and alternate cadence separately, the service-plan page lists each month in the split schedule, and the cover page keeps the saved proposal date on the correct calendar day instead of shifting date-only records backward in some time zones.
• Generic Quote -- displays manual line items in a simple table format.
• Maintenance Proposal -- shows the visit schedule, per-visit pricing, and annual cost.

Sending Proposals by Email

When you click Send Estimate on the review step, the system attaches the PDF to the outgoing email automatically. The customer receives:

1. An email with a summary of the estimate and the PDF attached.
2. A clickable link to view the proposal online.

You do not need to download and attach the PDF manually. The system handles it.

Residential estimates, generic quotes, holiday lights, fleet proposals, and commercial building proposals now all use the same shared review-and-send modal. Staff review the outbound email copy and outbound text message copy together, then confirm one combined send. The email carries the attachment or secure link for that estimate type, and the text message is delivered alongside it when the client phone number and SMS setup are available.

Mobile reps now stay in that same send-and-close loop after the estimate exists. From mobile proposal detail, a salesperson can open the secure customer-facing estimate or proposal view that matches that quote's live delivery path, present it in person, let the customer accept and sign on the spot, and then launch either a 25% deposit link or a full-balance payment link without going back to the office UI.

Estimate send actions still kick off follow-up sync work in the background, but the actual email/text delivery shown in the shared send modal is now confirmed before the office sees success.

If your office sends a large burst of estimates at once, CE Pro may briefly show the delivery as Queued or Processing while the background worker drains the send backlog.

When you save and send a quote from the Generic Quote Builder, the send step now reuses the customer token generated during the save response instead of regenerating it a second time. That keeps the new-quote send flow from failing on resend/retry paths and also surfaces provider misconfiguration as a real send failure instead of a false success.

The manual Send Estimate / Resend Estimate flow now waits for the email delivery step to succeed before it reports success back to the office. If the send fails, CE Pro keeps the estimate retriable instead of claiming it was delivered and then blocking resend because the record is no longer in draft.

If secure estimate-link signing is not configured yet, the office can still send the estimate email. In that fallback mode, the PDF still goes out, and the send dialog warns that the online estimate link is temporarily unavailable instead of blocking the entire send action.

Downloading a PDF

You can download a PDF at any time from the estimate detail page.

1. Open the Manage section in the admin sidebar, click Estimates, and open an estimate.
2. Click Download PDF on the estimate detail page.
3. The PDF downloads to your device.

This is useful when you need to print a proposal, attach it to a separate email, or save a copy for your records.

Browsing the Estimates List

The main Estimates list under Daily work opens as the Estimate workbench. The top of the page now highlights drafts to send, viewed proposals that need follow-up, unassigned estimates, and accepted estimates that still need job handoff. Those priority cards use the records currently loaded in the table and double as quick filters for the most common office follow-up paths.

The list still loads the newest records first and supports filters for status, source, rep, estimate type, tags, and date range. The date control supports quick presets plus a custom start/end picker, so sales managers can jump straight to an exact window instead of relying only on fixed ranges.

Each row also includes a Next action control beside the status. Depending on the estimate, the row can send a draft, open AI follow-up, create a job from an accepted estimate, create or copy a payment link, schedule the appointment, request a review, or open the detail page.

Behind the scenes, that screen now runs on a unified indexed read model that combines residential estimates, generic quotes, holiday lights records, fleet proposals, and commercial building proposals into one fast list. Search, filters, and pagination are applied before the page returns results, so larger organizations can keep working the same way without waiting on the app to merge full estimate history in memory.

Use Load More at the bottom of the page to fetch the next batch of records when you want to keep scrolling through older estimates.

Bulk status changes from that list now report one accurate success or failure summary after the batch finishes instead of showing a false partial-failure warning when the selected estimates all updated successfully.

Online Proposal Link

Every sent estimate generates a unique proposal URL. The customer can open this link in any browser.

What the Customer Sees

The online proposal page displays:

• A branded header with your company logo.
• The full estimate breakdown with line items and pricing.
• A transparent pricing summary that shows subtotal, discount, taxable amount, sales tax, and total.
• Custom items inside the main estimate breakdown so they are included in the quote total the customer sees before payment options.
• An expiration notice if the proposal has a validity period.
• An Accept button that opens the e-signature capture.
• A Decline button to reject the proposal.

Generic quotes now use the same shared customer quote page under the unified quote-core path. Preview, email delivery, resend, and acceptance all point at that same persisted quote link, so the office no longer saves a generic draft through one route and opens it through a different customer-view path.

The mobile proposal shell now respects that broader estimate coverage too. Generic Quote and Asphalt Maintenance launches are available from the mobile sales app through guided web handoff cards, and once those estimates are saved they appear back in mobile proposal lists with working customer-view, signature, and payment-link actions. Mobile close actions now prefer the estimate/customer view first, which keeps holiday lights, fleet, commercial building, asphalt, and generic flows on the customer page that actually exists for that quote.

Residential base estimate links are now beginning to use that same shared quote-core customer page too when the saved estimate has a persisted public quote token. Multi-option proposal pages and maintenance-plan pages still keep their dedicated customer screens for now, but the base estimate preview/open flow is no longer forced to stay on the older estimate-only route.

Customer-engagement alerts now distinguish between the email itself being opened and the customer document page being opened. When Resend reports that the email was opened, the outbound email row in Messages shows the tracked open time, total opens, and any tracked link click. When the customer then opens the quote, estimate, proposal, maintenance proposal, fleet proposal, commercial building proposal, or linked shared quote page, CE Pro raises a separate live admin alert for that page open and records the viewed event in the thread.

E-Signature

When the customer clicks Accept, a signature pad appears. They draw their signature using a mouse, trackpad, or finger on a touchscreen. After signing, they confirm acceptance.

Only customer-facing estimates that have actually been sent or viewed can be accepted, declined, or signed through the public proposal link. Drafts and expired records are blocked from those customer-action paths until the office sends a live proposal.

Once signed:

• The estimate status changes to Accepted.
• You receive an in-app alert in the admin bell right away for commercial and fleet proposals. The bell now refreshes live on new signed-proposal alerts instead of waiting for the old polling interval.
• Any proposal_accepted webhook subscriptions fire at the same time for commercial and fleet proposals.
• The signature PNG is validated and saved before the acceptance completes, so the signed record keeps the captured signature instead of silently accepting without it.
• Follow-up tasks like activity logging, pipeline history, and linked-estimate automation no longer turn a completed customer signature into a false failed-sign response if one of those later bookkeeping steps has a temporary issue.

If the customer requests changes instead of fully accepting, the admin estimate detail page now shows a dedicated Customer Changes Requested card with:

• The interaction status and timestamp.
• The requested subtotal and accepted total.
• Any customer-wide note they submitted.
• The exact included and removed line items from their selection.

Proposal Expiration

You can configure how long proposals remain valid. After the expiration date, the online proposal page shows an expiration notice and disables the accept button. The customer must contact you for a new proposal.

A cron job runs daily to expire proposals that have passed their validity date.

Tips

• Always preview before sending. A two-second check prevents embarrassing pricing errors.
• Use the online proposal link instead of the PDF when possible. The web version is interactive and allows e-signature without printing.
• Download PDFs for in-person sales. If you are meeting a customer on-site, pull up the PDF on a tablet or print it beforehand.
• Use mobile proposal detail for live closes. Open the customer proposal from the phone or tablet, capture acceptance and signature, and then create a deposit or balance payment link while you are still with the customer.
• Check your company logo in Settings. The logo appears at the top of every PDF and online proposal.

Troubleshooting

PDF is blank or missing sections

Make sure the estimate has at least one service selected with pricing greater than zero. A blank estimate produces a minimal PDF.

Customer says they cannot open the proposal link

Verify the link has not expired. Check the estimate detail page for the current status. If the proposal expired, resend the estimate to generate a new link.

If the office sees a warning that secure estimate links are unavailable, the email can still be delivered with the PDF attachment, but the customer will not receive the browser-based estimate link until customer-link signing is configured again.

Company logo is not showing on the PDF

Go to Settings > Account and upload a logo. The PDF generator uses the logo stored in your organization settings.