Estimate Statuses
MartinCA
Member Posts: 6
I would love if it was possible to have deeper functionality for estimates.
Currently there is no way to update a status myself. Even if the estimates status's have a drop down on each to update them.
Status's could be:
Saved
Sent
Viewed
Accepted
Expired
Rejected
Further enhancing it with an editable Notes field for each status would be a great help, such as Rejected and in the notes you can track why "Too expensive" for example.
Essentially I would like to use wave and only wave to manage my small business but it needs some good CRM features for me to step away from other products that are on the market.
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Comments
Hi @MartinCA,
Can you give me a little bit more information on your business? I'd love to know how a feature like this one would help you in the specific context of your business.
What kind of a business do you run? In an ideal world, what would the process of sending estimates and invoices to your customers be like, step-by-step?
I would also love the ability to edit the status of my estimates, or the ability to duplicate estimates. This would allow my business to send the estimates to multiple stakeholders within an organization, and track who has viewed the estimate prior to out next communication.
Hi @Swivel_Interactive.
Could you give us an example of a time where that would have been useful to you? I would love to have a better idea of your workflow regarding estimates.
Hi, I would also appreciate this functionality. Sometimes I export an estimate as a PDF in order to combine it with other documents (like terms sheets, scopes of work, etc), and deliver it to a client in person (or sometimes via email). In cases such as these I would like the ability to mark the estimate as "Approved" when the client signs it to help keep parity between my (amazing!) accounting software (Wave) and reality. Any chance we can expect this functionality to be added in the near future? Thanks!
Hi @Alexia
Thanks for the response, as the others have mentioned, often times estimates are handled in different ways, for myself clients approve estimates telephonically and make payment via their own methods, thus my need to manually update an estimates status. At the moment I have dozens of "EXPIRED" estimates which is not the true case and I have no way of marking which ones have actually been approved/paid for/rejected etc. which will help my business tremendously to track things.
We are a branding/advertising agency with customers in every industry. Becuase of the nature of our business and operation model, we are required to seek approvals before starting projects and track jobs accordingly before invoicing. Currently the WaveApps estimate system is very limited and does not account for holistic procedural updates to the status. e.g. Draft > Sent > Viewed > APPROVED > INVOICED
If you use Freshbooks as a reference when an estimate is sent out and viewed, clients have the option of "Approving" it on their end and we will be notified of their approval via email and an automatic status update on our end. Alternatively, if the client gives approval via email, we can manually change the status to approved. Lastly, when the job is completed and we select "Convert to Invoice", once the invoice is saved and approved, the estimate status is updated to "Invoiced".
The "Approved" and "Invoiced" statuses would be an immense addition to your current system and go a long way to allow any business that has a project management operational model to make better use of Wave. e.g. agencies, freelancers, service professionals, and many more. It will definitely be more appealing to new/existing users coming from Freshbooks because that is one of the features I miss that Wave does not currently offer.
On a final note, having mobile access to the estimates via the iOS/Android apps will also be a great update to allow for more convenient and seamless remote access/control.
Thanks in advance.
Hi, @gnowland, @MartinCA and @carel,
Thank you so much for adding to this discussion and helping us get a detailed view of what that feature would mean to your business and your work. I'll pass your feedback along.
I can't guarantee a timeline or promise that this feature will be added to Wave, but I can tell you that feedback from Wavers has a significant impact on what we choose to build next. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to share yours.
Hey Alexia, it's been 557 days, any update on this? Would love to see the feature added to Wave, at the moment the Estimate utility is a bit neutered without it, and my organization is inefficient as a result. Hope to hear good news. Cheers - G
Hi There,
I also second the requests in this thread. However, in my case what we I need most is the simple inclusion of a Sent status. I have multiple staff drafting, reviewing and sending estimates and it's become a manual exercise to keep track of which estimates have actually been sent already, and which are awaiting further review to be sent. The 'mark as sent' functionality would work great.
I've now discovered there already is a 'sent' status that is applied only if you send it with WAVE. In this case it would be nice to have a 'mark as sent' feature, much like in Invoicing, for those of us that need to send estimates using gmail or other (due to needing to include attachments). Thanks!
Not sure about others, but looking at my win rate is where this would be a huge help. Even if the status changed to “converted” or something similar after I convert it to an invoice. Others would also help me understand why I’m not winning the ones being rejected if I can see any trends starting to emerge (obviously it would take -a lot- for all the permutations of why or why not, but some basic ones would be an enormous help!).
@HydraFlo Definitely a good thought when it comes to wanting to track whether or not your invoices/estimates have been sent out -- something to consider when we're looking at improving this section of the software.
@tsfjax A really cool idea for sure. Being able to measure your businesses success by finding the perfect balance for essentially 'estimate win-rate' would be something interesting to look at. I can say confidently that we don't have any plans to implement such a thing, but appreciate you putting it on our radar for future considerations.
Pretty pretty pretty please with chocolate, cherries, or a warm, hearty stout on top (except the stout which would be served in a proper pint like civilized folk). 🙏🏻
Surprised there isn't a way to set the estimate status. Seems obvious enough. I hope they implement it soon. Also, estimates should be visible in the Dashboard.
Adding another vote for having estimate statuses - even if it is just 'Mark as Sent' like we have with Invoices. It doesn't make sense that this doesn't exist?
Please add a few additional estimate status' - like "approved", "rejected", "converted to invoice" or simply "converted" and the ability to mark as sent. It doesn't have to be complicated--I am (and I think most on this post are) looking for an easy way to filter the status of estimates so you know what is open and/or pending.
Hi @Looney and @salad1106 ! Thank you both for adding your voice to this conversation about this Estimates feature idea. This isn't something our product team is currently working on building out at this time. We're always looking to improve our user experience and feedback like this helps us to do just that - so thank you for sharing!
Just piping in on how much better the estimates could be with Wave. Building it out a bit more could easily replace services like Quotient, Sage, Freshbooks, etc... marking the sent status of an estimate would be one of many additions that would make Wave go from good to great.
Please add this feature!
https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/2469/estimate-approved
https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/899/estimate-status-options
https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/647/estimate-statuses
https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/1135/approve-an-estimate
Any update on this feature?
Can a Support give us any update on this feature? Seems like a huge oversight. Seeing "converted" status would help track follow ups I need to make to clients.