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Sending a proposal, and what the client sees
What is fixed at the moment you send, and the page your client opens.
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Sending happens from step 4 of the builder, Review & send, and it goes through the preview first. Preview proposal opens the whole letter; Send proposal at the foot of it opens the confirmation, which asks you to Freeze and send or say Not yet. There is no route to the send that skips reading the document.
What is frozen at send, and what is not
At the moment you send, the wording, the figures and the fee table are fixed. The client's copy can never change after that.
The part people get wrong: editing your service catalogue afterwards does not alter a proposal already with a client. Ticking a service copied its wording and its price onto the proposal at the time, so a later price rise, rename or archive leaves every proposal already sent exactly as the client received it. The same is true of the template you wrote it from.
If something in a sent proposal is wrong, the correction is a new proposal that replaces it, not an edit. The one thing you can still change is your own internal name for it, which the client never sees.
Before it will send
The panel runs a short checklist: a client with an email address, at least one service, every service priced, and an engagement letter that is not empty. Anything genuinely optional, such as an expiry date or payment terms, is stated in grey rather than flagged, so a warning always means something.
One other thing can stop a send: your monthly proposal allowance, which you can see on Settings › Billing & plan.
The preview also lists any merge field that has nothing behind it. Those do not block the send, and that is exactly why they are worth reading. The letter prints your company identity from Settings › Company details, so anything missing there appears in the preview as a blank and then prints as a blank on a binding quote. A gap in the client's own record behaves the same way. Complete both before you send rather than after.
The covering note
Covering note for the email (optional) sits beside the send button. It goes in the email only. It is not part of the engagement letter, your client does not sign it, and it does not appear on the acceptance page or in the signed PDF. Anything the client is agreeing to belongs in the wording instead. Leave it blank to send the email without one.
What happens when you press send
The document is prepared first, and the panel says so while it works: nothing has gone to your client, and the link does not become live until the PDF exists. When it does, the email goes out and the panel confirms it, with a link to see exactly what your client sees.
If the document cannot be produced, the panel says plainly that nothing was sent and offers Try again. The wording and pricing you approved stay frozen, so a retry sends what you already read.
What your client opens
A page carrying your logo and your brand colour, with the letter to read on the page, the fee table as a real table, and an Open PDF link to the document itself. The PDF is the document they sign, and they can keep a copy of it.
At the bottom they get two choices: Accept & Sign or Decline. See When a client accepts or declines.
Following it afterwards
The proposal's own page tracks it. It reads Sent until the client opens it, then Viewed, then Signing once they have started to sign, then Accepted. Declined, Expired and Cancelled are the other endings. A proposal past its Valid until date can no longer be accepted, and your client is told so on the page.
Three actions sit in the header of that page while it is still live:
- Copy client link puts the client's own link on your clipboard, for sending it again yourself.
- Send reminder emails the client about it. On a proposal that reads Signing the button says Remind signer instead, and sends the signing link again. See Chasing a client about a proposal.
- Withdraw proposal, in the menu at the end, takes it back. See Withdrawing a proposal.