Features

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Feature Overview

Cortado Pro brings leads, events, quotes, invoices, payments, and client communication into one place — built for event planners, caterers, and small event businesses. This page is a tour of everything the platform does, grouped by the area of the app where you’ll find it.

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Leads & Pipeline

Turn inquiries into bookings with a visual kanban board that tracks every lead from first contact to a signed booking.

• Pipeline stages: New, In Progress, Quote Sent, Accepted, Rejected, and Stale — drag and drop leads between stages or update them from the detail page.
• Rejection reasons: When a lead moves to Rejected, you’re prompted for a reason (Budget, Timing, Competitor, or your own custom options) plus optional notes. A banner on the lead keeps the context visible.
• Quick tags: Flag leads as Follow Up, Urgent, Hot Lead, VIP, or Waiting with one-click icons for fast triage.
• Source attribution: Every inquiry records where it came from — Google Ads, Facebook, Organic Search, Referral, or Direct — with source badges on each lead.
• Advanced filters: Filter by received date, event date range, stage, event type, or tag. Filters sync between kanban and table views and persist across sessions.
• Scheduling conflict detection: Cortado automatically flags other events and leads that overlap a proposed event time, using your setup and teardown buffers.
• Accept on behalf of a customer: Move a lead to Accepted and select an existing quote to instantly create the booking, events, and invoice — no customer action required.

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Events & Calendar

Plan, schedule, and track every event in one calendar that also shows the leads heading your way.

• Multi-event inquiries and bookings: A single lead or quote can hold multiple event dates — perfect for multi-day weddings, corporate series, or recurring gigs.
• Unified calendar: See leads and events together in day, week, or month views, with multi-day events plotted on every date they span.
• Stage filters: Hide and show lead stages (New, In Progress, Quote Sent, Accepted) and event stages (Upcoming, Complete, Cancelled, Rescheduled, Postponed) to focus on what matters.
• Upcoming and completed tabs: The Events page separates what’s next from past history while keeping both one click away.
• Direct event creation: Add a booking and its first event from the Events page without going through the pipeline.
• Timezones: Event times display in the event’s own local timezone across admin, portal, and email — with a one-click “Use location timezone” when an address is set.
• Auto-completion: Past events and bookings are automatically marked Complete, keeping your schedule accurate without manual cleanup.
• Staffing fields: Track guest count, barista count, cart count, and assignments directly on each event.

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Contacts & Companies

Your CRM side of the house — every contact, every company, every interaction.

• Contacts directory: Searchable list with inline editing and duplicate-email detection when adding contacts on the fly.
• Contact detail pages: Avatar header, related inquiries, related events, company links, and a unified notes/tasks tab.
• Company directory: Store company name, website, phone, and address with their own detail pages.
• Auto-matching: New inquiries automatically link to the right company based on the contact’s email domain.
• Contact swapping: Reassign a lead or event to a different contact without losing any history.

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Quotes

Build professional, multi-event quotes and get them in front of customers fast.

• Multi-event quotes: Add multiple dates to one quote, each with its own time, duration, and guest count.
• Quote templates: Save event-type-specific pricing with base rates, hourly rates, and default line items. Matching templates auto-apply when you create a new quote.
• Enforced tips: Set a required minimum tip percentage per event type that auto-applies on quotes and checkout.
• Quote workflow: One-click send after creation, and the lead automatically advances to Quote Sent the first time you send it.
• Quote statuses: Draft, Sent, Viewed, Revised, Accepted, Rejected, Expired, and Cancelled.
• Editable expiration dates: Extend or shorten how long a quote is valid.
• Email customization: Configure subject lines and custom text slots per template to match your brand.
• Dedicated Quotes page: Status tabs and a summary strip give you a home for tracking every outstanding, accepted, and declined quote.

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Invoices & Payments

Run the whole money side of your business — invoices, schedules, payments, refunds, disputes.

• Stripe Checkout: Customers pay through Stripe’s secure embedded checkout with real-time status updates.
• ACH bank transfer: Accept bank payments with automatic microdeposit verification and email guidance for customers.
• Per-invoice payment methods: Override your organization-wide default to accept card only, ACH only, or both for a specific invoice.
• Payment schedules: Fixed-amount or percentage-based installments, editable on existing invoices, with progress bars and per-schedule Pay buttons.
• Manual payments: Record cash, check, or other offline payments with receipt and void emails.
• Refunds: Issue full or partial refunds, including goodwill refunds that exceed the original amount.
• Disputes: Stripe dispute events are captured automatically with a dedicated dashboard to review status, reason, and amount.
• Tips: Apply tips to the final schedule or spread them across every schedule — with paid totals shown in green and a clear tip breakdown.
• Send and share: Send invoices by email, share draft invoices via link before finalizing, and copy secure portal links tied to JWT tokens.
• Alerts: Email notifications when a quote is accepted and when a payment (card or ACH) is received.

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Customer Portal

The customer-facing side of Cortado — where your clients review quotes, sign, pay, and tip.

• Quote review and acceptance: Customers compare quote revisions side-by-side and accept online.
• Invoice payment: Pay via card or ACH directly in the portal, with a sidebar that navigates between multiple invoices for the same booking.
• Customizable tipping: Choose which tip percentages appear, pick a default, allow or disable custom amounts, and write a personalized message for customers who choose not to tip. Enforced minimums are respected automatically.
• Terms & conditions: Define multiple reorderable clauses shown in the portal footer as a modal.
• Booking confirmation: Post-acceptance confirmation includes event duration and a personalized greeting.

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Inquiry Forms

Capture leads straight from your website with a form that matches your brand.

• Two embed modes: A multi-step wizard or a single-page layout showing every field at once — each with its own embed code.
• Custom subdomain: Host your form at yourcompany.cortadopro.com using your organization slug.
• Branded customization: Configure services, add-ons, questions, and the order items appear in (drag and drop).
• Empty-step skipping: Steps like Add-ons are hidden automatically when there’s nothing to choose.
• Google Analytics 4: Track submissions, step completions, and user interactions as GA4 events (supports G-, GT-, and AW- tag formats).
• Google Ads conversions: Fire a conversion event on submission by adding your Google Ads conversion label — no code changes required.
• CC address: Add a secondary email to receive every new inquiry notification.

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Reports

Understand your business at a glance with reports that update in real time.

• Revenue intelligence dashboard: KPI cards for Collected revenue, Outstanding balance, Total Pipeline, Average Invoice, and Close Rate, plus a monthly collected-vs-invoiced trend chart.
• Revenue by event type: See which event types drive the most revenue, with counts for context.
• Lead conversion funnel: Visualize how leads move from New through Accepted.
• Leads dashboard: Total leads, close rate, average deal size with period-over-period comparisons, plus a stage breakdown chart.
• Sales tax report: Taxable sales, total tax collected, and a breakdown by tax rate — with preset ranges like This Month, Last Quarter, or Last Year.
• Daily activity summary: Every note and completed task from any given day, each linked to its parent record.
• Flexible date ranges: Presets and custom ranges with optional comparison periods across every report.

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Notifications

Stay on top of what’s happening across your organization — without living in the app.

• In-app notification center: A bell in the header surfaces new inquiries, payment updates, event changes, and more. Mark read, archive, or jump straight to the item.
• Bulk actions: Mark all as read or archive all in one click.
• Email summaries: Daily, weekly, or monthly digests with configurable delivery time and day.
• Content filters: Choose exactly what each digest includes — events, tasks, leads, or payments — and filter by stage (e.g., overdue tasks, upcoming events, pending payments).
• Extra recipients: Add additional email addresses to any notification type so the right teammates stay in the loop.

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Global Search

Jump to any record from anywhere in the app.

• Keyboard shortcut: Press ⌘K on macOS or Ctrl+K on Windows to open search instantly.
• Unified results: Search across contacts, leads, events, and invoices in one place, ranked by relevance with fuzzy matching.
• Keyboard navigation: Arrow keys to move, Enter to open, Escape to close.
• What you can search: contact names, emails, and phone numbers; lead contact names and event types; event contact names and dates; invoice numbers, titles, and contact names.

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Integrations

Connect Cortado to the tools you already use.

• Stripe: Accept card and ACH payments, manage disputes, and reconcile refunds with full webhook-backed reliability.
• Gmail: Send emails directly from Cortado and keep threads in sync with your leads and events.
• Google Calendar: Choose which calendar to sync to, and events flow both ways automatically — including a manual sync button when you need it now.
• Slack: Connect your workspace via OAuth and pick one or more channels (public or private) for new inquiry notifications.
• Google Analytics: Track your inquiry form with GA4 and fire Google Ads conversions on submission.

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Tasks

Keep work moving with tasks linked to the leads, events, bookings, and invoices they belong to.

• Kanban board: Drag tasks between Not Started, In Progress, and Completed columns.
• Filters: Narrow by assignee, priority, or due date.
• Parent context: Every task card shows the name of the related lead, event, booking, or invoice so you always know the why.
• Dashboard view: Your personal task list on the dashboard shows only tasks assigned to you.

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Team & Roles

Invite teammates and control who can do what.

• Built-in Admin role: Every organization has a system-managed Admin role that grants full access.
• Custom roles: Create additional roles with tailored permissions for team members who shouldn’t have full access.
• Multi-role invites: Invite people by email and assign one or more roles with a multi-select dropdown.
• Scheduling: Assign staff to events, track acceptance status, and manage shifts inline on the event page.

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Feedback

Share what’s working and what isn’t — directly from inside Cortado.

• Submit feedback: File suggestions, feature requests, or bug reports without leaving the app.
• Categories: Tag each item as Bug, Feature Request, or General.
• Upvotes: Support ideas from other teammates — popular items rise to the top.
• Edit and delete: Manage your own submissions from the card menu.

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Settings

Configure Cortado to fit how you actually run your business.

• Organization: Business info, brand assets, timezone, contact and inquiry CC email addresses.
• Catalog and services: Items, add-ons, units, and inventory ratio percentages.
• Payments: Default payment methods, quote templates, enforced tip percentages per event type, tip selector options, and terms & conditions clauses.
• Communications: Gmail, calendar picker, system email customization, and notification rules — all in one hub reorganized into six clear domain groups.
• Forms: Embed codes, field options, customization, GA4, and Google Ads conversions.
• Rejection reasons: Configure your own list of lead rejection reasons.
• Disputes and webhooks: Inspect Stripe disputes and webhook health from dedicated settings pages.

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Security & Reliability

Cortado is built to protect your data and your customers.

• Multi-tenant isolation: Every organization’s data is fully scoped — no cross-org access.
• Role-based access control: A built-in Admin role plus fully custom roles let you enforce least-privilege access across your team.
• Audit logging: An activity feed records inquiries, quote updates, payments, event changes, and other key actions as they happen.
• Encryption in transit and at rest: All traffic is encrypted, and data at rest is protected by the underlying managed database.
• Stripe PCI compliance: Card data is handled by Stripe Checkout — Cortado never sees or stores raw card numbers.
• Idempotent payments: Payments, refunds, and manual entries use idempotency keys to prevent duplicate charges if a request is retried.
• Resilient background jobs: Payment processing, notifications, and calendar syncs use tiered retries and centralized error monitoring to recover from transient failures.