Send estimate: freeze and deliver the PDF to the customer

Where to find it

In the menu, in Quotes, open the quote. At the top of the page, click the Send estimate button, to the left of Confirm estimate: its description says "freezes the estimate and generates the PDF for the customer".

The button shows up while the quote can be worked on: in Draft or in Waiting. With the proposal already in the customer's hands it stays there, but it does not freeze again: it reopens the delivery options for the version the customer has. To change the proposal, click what you want to change on the quote and confirm the notice: it goes back to editing (see Edit a sent proposal: reopen, revise and resend).

What "Send estimate" does, and what it does not do

Clicking Send estimate freezes the quote and generates the PDF right away: there is no confirmation window along the usual path. It does three things, in this order:

1. takes a snapshot of the quote as it is now and turns that snapshot into a numbered version (v1, v2, v3…);
2. generates the PDF of this version, valid for 14 days;
3. locks the quote for editing and pricing: it starts showing as Awaiting customer approval.

⚠️ Freezing does not send anything to anyone. The customer gets no automatic message. After the click, the Estimate COT-… ready window shows up, which says "It hasn't left here yet: choose below how it goes." Delivery is the next step, in that window: download the PDF, send it to your WhatsApp or to the quote seller's WhatsApp. Whoever delivers the estimate is you.

The validity

Nobody chooses the validity: it is always 14 days. It counts from the moment of sending, and it is the deadline printed on the PDF. Once that deadline passes with no reply, the quote expires on its own and starts showing as Expired. See The quote's validity period, and what happens when it expires.

Who the proposal goes to

The recipient is the customer contact linked to the quote. The window only opens before sending when there is something for you to decide, a block or an error, and then it shows the Recipient. If there is no linked contact, it says "no linked contact: the customer receives the PDF, and the confirmation is recorded by you ("Customer confirmed")". Not having a contact does not prevent sending.

When that window opens and the customer has already received earlier versions of this document, it also warns: "The customer has already received 2 versions of this estimate. This sending replaces the previous one." Without the window, the warning does not show, but the rule is the same: the new version replaces the previous one.

How to deliver the estimate after sending

On the Estimate COT-… ready screen there are two delivery options, and a third when the quote belongs to another seller:

• Download the PDF (vN): downloads this version's file. You send it however you like: WhatsApp, email, whatever you use.
• Send to my WhatsApp: the PDF arrives on your WhatsApp, and from there you forward it to whoever needs it: the customer, or the seller who talks to them.
• Send to <seller>'s WhatsApp: shows up when whoever is sending is not the quote's seller (the administrative staff, for example): the PDF goes to the seller's WhatsApp, with your name in the message. If the quote is still in a rep agency's queue, without a seller, and you can distribute its quotes, the option asks which member receives the PDF, and it comes with that member already chosen when the rep agency has only one. On sending, the quote becomes that member's. Without a seller outside that case, the option shows locked and says why.

Sending through Vendria is only by WhatsApp. Whoever has no phone number registered gets a notice saying where to register it. Yours is in My Account. An in-house seller's, in Users. A rep agency's seller registers theirs in My Account, or the rep agency's Partner registers it in My Team.

Closed the window? While the version is with the customer, the Send estimate button stays at the top of the quote. It reopens the same options for that version's PDF, without generating a new version.

There is no copy-link button and no direct sending to the customer in this window. The file is always the same: the exact bytes of this version.

When the PDF does not arrive on WhatsApp

Each sending option shows what happened, right below it:

• "Sent. Check your WhatsApp.": it arrived.
• An amber sentence explaining why it did not go out. One of them is about WhatsApp's 24-hour window, and it counts the conversation of whoever receives it: in Send to my WhatsApp, if it has been more than a day since you exchanged messages with the store's number, send it any message and try again; in Send to <seller>'s WhatsApp, the window is the seller's, and the sentence asks them to send the message. Another is not having a phone number registered: the notice says where to register it.
• A red sentence starting with "I couldn't reach the server": a connection failure; then it is worth trying again.
• The paused-AI sentence: sending on WhatsApp does not go out when your account has the credit pause turned on and the month's credit ran out, when there is an overdue AI invoice, or when the AI subscription has not been paid yet. The sentence says which of the three it is, when it comes back and what solves it before then.

In any of these cases, Download the PDF (vN) keeps working.

Sending on WhatsApp uses 1 credit

Each sending that Meta confirms as delivered on WhatsApp, to you or to the seller, uses 1 AI credit from the account. What does not arrive does not cost anything: neither what the screen already warns did not go out (the amber sentence explains why), nor what WhatsApp refuses later, such as a number that does not receive messages. The debit shows up within a few minutes after delivery.

The sending shows up in the Actions menu as Estimate sending, with the credit in the Credits column when it is turned on for your account. While delivery is not confirmed, the column shows a dash. Clicking the same sending again right after does not cost anything either: the window replies that it has already been sent. Downloading the PDF never uses credit.

The stock decision before freezing

If some item does not have enough stock and nobody has decided what to do, the window shows, before sending, a red block "N items don't have enough stock and nobody has decided what to do", with three choices:

• Send the ordered quantity anyway: it comes already selected. The ordered quantity goes in full to the order and to the customer's file.
• Send only what's in stock (N): for items with a partial shortage: the line keeps what the store has today, and what is missing is noted in Future demand to sell later. It can come back to this order.
• Send only what's in stock, without the pre-sale (N) (in a store that does not count pre-sale: Send only what's in stock and remove what isn't): each item with a shortage keeps only what is on the shelf, and what is missing is noted in Future demand. An item with no stock at all leaves the estimate (it does not go in the customer's file or in the order) and does not come back to this estimate: its price and allocation are lost.

The last two only show up when there are items in that situation. The choice is applied before freezing, because afterwards the proposal stays locked: changing the quantity requires sending the quote back to editing, which voids the version the customer has. See Stock on the quote: the shortage warning and the ways out.

Items not in the catalog leave the proposal

Lines with a code that is not in the catalog show up in an amber block: "N items don't go into this estimate. They leave the file the customer receives, and the file tells them so, with code and quantity." This does not lock sending. Those items are automatically recorded in Future demand at the moment of sending: you don't need to click anything for that.

When a window shows up before sending

If there is something to decide (stock shortage, item not found in the catalog, a removed line or one in pre-sale) or something that prevents sending, the click opens a window with the choice, and sending only happens when you click Send in it. While stock is still being checked, the window says "Checking stock…" and waits.

When the Send button is locked

There are two cases, and the sentence next to the button says which it is:

• A line with zero quantity: "To unlock it, close and fix the quantity in the table, or remove the line from the order." The customer would receive a total that does not add up.
• An empty proposal: all lines are not in the catalog (or zeroed), and the customer would receive a file without any items: "No item goes into the proposal … Close and use “Search the catalog” on the line to point to the right code for at least one item."

A quote with no lines at all does not freeze either: sending replies that the quote has no items.

What the PDF shows and what the order carries, when they differ

In two cases the window warns "What the customer sees and what will be invoiced differ on this order":

• there is a line you chose to remove because of a stock shortage: it stays on the PDF, which shows what the customer asked for, and does not go into the ERP order;
• there is committed pre-sale: on the PDF it is a single line, and in the ERP it becomes two orders, the regular one and the pre-sale one. The total matches; the order count does not.

After sending

The quote stays Awaiting customer approval, and on the list it shows as Waiting for customer · N days ago (counted from the most recent sending). On the page there is the Quote sent strip, which says you can keep editing and that the changes go into the next version, and the Version PDF (vN) link, which downloads again the exact file you delivered.

When the customer accepts, record it with Customer confirmed. See Confirm the estimate: directly or after the customer accepted.

Common questions

• I froze it, but the customer says they got nothing. Freezing does not send. Open the quote, download the Version PDF (vN) and send it to them.
• Can I send the PDF from the Export menu? For the proposal, prefer the Version PDF: it is the frozen snapshot. The files from the Export menu are generated on the spot, from the document as it is, and may bring internal fields that the version PDF hides.
• I want a different validity. It is always 14 days and cannot be chosen. Resending (after going back to editing) starts a new 14-day period from the resend.
• I don't see "Send estimate". The quote has already been confirmed, rejected, canceled or has expired (on an expired one, it first goes back to editing, on the first change you make). With the proposal in the customer's hands it stays there, and reopens the delivery options for the version the customer has.