How to change the status of an estimate

This article explains how to change the status of an estimate that you've created in FreeAgent.

Here are a few examples of when you may need to change the status of an estimate in FreeAgent:

• To mark an estimate as sent
• To mark an estimate as approved once a customer has approved it
• To mark an estimate as rejected if it isn’t approved by a customer 
• To edit an estimate that has been marked as sent or approved by reverting it to a draft 
• To convert an estimate to an invoice once a customer has approved it

There are also a few different ways for you to review the history of changes made to an estimate.

Opening the estimate

Navigate to the 'Work' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Estimates' from the drop-down menu.

Select the reference number of the relevant estimate.

Changing the status of an estimate

The status of an estimate is displayed in bold with a green indicator above the estimate.

Marking an estimate as sent

Before you send an estimate to a customer via FreeAgent or download a PDF of the estimate and send it from outside of FreeAgent, you will need to mark it as sent. To do this, select ‘Mark as Sent’ above the estimate.

Marking an estimate as approved

Once an estimate that you’ve sent has been approved by a customer, select 'Mark as Approved' to change the status of the estimate to approved.

Marking an estimate as rejected

If an estimate isn’t approved by a customer, you can change its status to rejected by selecting ‘Mark as Rejected’ from the 'Actions' drop-down menu.

Editing an estimate

To edit the information on an estimate that has been marked as sent or approved, select 'Make Draft' above the estimate.

After making the relevant changes, select 'Mark as Sent' to change the status of the estimate back to 'Sent'. Please note that you will need to send the updated version of the estimate to a customer and select ‘Mark as Approved’ once they’ve approved it.

Converting an estimate to an invoice

To convert an estimate to an invoice once it’s been approved by a customer, select 'Convert to Invoice' above the estimate. You can only select this option once an estimate has been marked as 'Sent'.

Selecting 'Convert to Invoice' converts the estimate into a draft invoice and gives it the next invoice number in sequence. Please note that this  will usually be a different number from the one it had as an estimate.

Once the estimate has been converted into an invoice, you can add more items to the invoice and send it to your contact.

Viewing the changes to an estimate

There are three ways you can view a list of changes that have been made to an estimate.

Navigate to the 'Work' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Estimates' from the drop-down menu. On the 'Estimates' screen, select 'View History' to the right of an estimate to view all the changes that have been made to that estimate.

Alternatively, if you open the relevant estimate, you can view the detailed 'History' in the section below the estimate.

Finally, you can also see a log of any new estimates that have been created, or existing estimates that have been updated, from 5th April 2021 onwards in your Audit Trail report.