Start with a quote-ready lead and settled commercial defaults

This workflow suits owners, estimators and office staff who prepare pricing for real fencing enquiries. In Fencify, the quote stays tied to the lead, so the customer name, site address and survey details follow the job into the quote builder and the proposal.

Before you create the draft quote, confirm these foundations are already in place:

• The lead has the correct client name, email, phone number and property address.
• The site visit has been completed or the survey details are clear enough to price confidently.
• The lead notes reflect the real job conditions, such as removal, access, ground conditions and any awkward scope items.
• Your account quote settings, GST behaviour, validity period and payment terms are set the way you want them to appear in customer documents.

Fencify also protects quoting behind financial access rules, so only authorised users should be creating, editing and sending quotes. That matters when more than one team member works inside the same account.

Create the draft quote from the lead so the records stay connected

Open the lead and create the quote from there rather than starting from scratch somewhere else. Fencify creates a new draft quote, assigns a quote number, generates the secure public proposal ID and opens the Quote Builder for that record.

This connection does practical work for you. The lead contact details, site address and survey context are already available, and the quote stays linked to the enquiry for later follow-up, acceptance and conversion into a project.

1. Open the lead you want to price.
2. Create the quote from that lead.
3. Confirm the new quote opens in Draft status.
4. Check that the lead details shown on the quote match the job you are about to price.

At this point you have a commercial shell, not a finished proposal. The important work happens inside the Quote Builder.

Build the fence runs before you think about the email

The Quote Builder is where the measured job becomes priced scope. Add the fence runs first. Give each run a name that makes sense to your team, enter the boundary length and choose the fence model that matches what you are supplying.

Where the selected model supports them, Fencify lets you carry through additional details such as height, supplier and colour. Those options matter because the builder uses them to decide which materials fit the recipe and which gate products are compatible with the run.

The builder also keeps separate track of the gross boundary length and the effective fence length when gate openings are deducted. That helps keep the material calculation honest on jobs with one or more gates built into the same line.

Add gates and manual items where the base recipe needs help

Many first quotes fail because the contractor prices the straight fence line and forgets the extras. Fencify handles this in two ways.

First, you can attach gate openings to a run. Choose the gate product, set the width and decide whether the opening deducts from the parent boundary or sits as an additional opening. Fencify keeps the gate under the parent run, recalculates the run length where needed and prices the gate materials separately.

Second, you can add manual quote items for anything that sits outside the standard model recipe. That can be helpful for custom hardware, special disposal allowances, one off labour components or other project-specific charges that still belong on the quote.

• Use attached gates when the opening is physically part of a fence run.
• Use manual items when the cost belongs on the quote but does not come from the run recipe.
• Review the staged gate widths before saving the run so the deducted openings still make sense against the original boundary length.

Every meaningful change to runs and manual items is captured in quote revision history. That means later edits are easier to understand, especially if the customer comes back with a scope change after the first proposal has gone out.

Review materials, labour, margin and GST before the customer sees anything

Once the runs, gates and manual items are in place, review the commercial result before you open the PDF or send the proposal. Fencify recalculates the bill of materials, labour lines, GST and quote total from the current quote items, so the final number depends on the detail you entered in the builder.

Use the quote detail record to review the grouped run structure, the merged item summary and the current status of the quote. This is also where you can see the history that matters later, including commercial snapshots taken when the proposal is sent or accepted.

Run through this check before moving forward:

• Every fence run has the right model and realistic length.
• Attached gates are present, sized correctly and treated as deducted or additional in the right way.
• Manual items cover the parts of the scope that the run recipes do not price.
• The total and GST align with how your business is meant to quote.
• The commercial assumptions you want to preserve at send time, including deposit and payment structure behaviour if you use them, are the ones you actually want the customer to receive.

Taking two extra minutes here is usually cheaper than explaining a rushed quote after it has already been sent.

Generate the proposal PDF and read it like a customer

Before you send the proposal email, generate the quote PDF and read it from top to bottom. Fencify builds the proposal document from the live quote data, including the customer details, run breakdown, additional items, subtotal, GST, total, validity window and payment terms.

Focus on clarity as much as price. A customer who can understand the run structure, the inclusions and the total is easier to close than a customer who receives a document full of vague line items and unexplained adjustments.

1. Open the current PDF version of the quote.
2. Check the customer name, address and contact details.
3. Read the run descriptions and item breakdown in order.
4. Confirm the validity period and payment terms read the way you expect.
5. Return to the builder if the wording, scope or total needs refinement.

If the quote includes neighbour details or related notice documents, keep those records accurate before the proposal is sent so later communications stay clean.

Send the proposal and watch the quote move through its next statuses

Send the proposal from the quote record once the pricing and document review are complete. Fencify can use a saved email template or a customised subject and message body, and it supports placeholders for the client name, quote number, amount and secure proposal link.

When the email goes out, Fencify changes the quote status to Sent, resets the last viewed marker and stores the sent commercial snapshot for later comparison. If you choose to schedule follow-up emails for stale quotes, Fencify stores the cadence and next run timing on the quote follow-up record at the same time.

From there, the quote can progress through the normal customer response stages:

Draft

The quote exists internally and is still being prepared.

Sent

The proposal email has gone out and the customer link is live.

Viewed

The customer has opened the public proposal.

Accepted

The quote has been accepted manually or through the public proposal flow.

Declined

The customer has declined or the quote has been closed out as unsuccessful.

The quote detail page also gives you a manual nudge option later if the proposal has gone quiet and you want to send a follow-up without rebuilding the quote.

Know what the first sent quote should leave behind

By the time the proposal is sent, Fencify should be holding a clean commercial record, not just an email trail. You should expect the quote to have:

• A linked lead and customer record.
• A quote number and secure public proposal ID.
• Structured fence runs, attached gates and quote items behind the total.
• Current totals and GST based on the builder data.
• Revision history for changes made during preparation.
• A sent commercial snapshot preserved at the moment of issue.
• A visible status trail that can move from Sent to Viewed, Accepted or Declined.

The next operating step is usually Start Here: Accept a quote and convert it into a project. If you want narrower help before that stage, look for the quick guides on Create a quote from a lead, Quote builder overview, Add quote runs, Add manual quote items, Generate a quote PDF and Send a quote.