Quotes

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Quotes Overview

Quotes are how you present pricing to your customers. Cortado helps you create accurate quotes quickly by pulling in details from the inquiry and applying your quote templates automatically.

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Creating a Quote

To create a new quote from an inquiry:

1. Open the inquiry from your Leads Pipeline
2. Click Create Quote
3. The quote builder opens with pre-filled line items and event details
4. Review, adjust, and send

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What Gets Pre-Filled

When you create a quote, Cortado automatically populates it with:

• Saved template by name — quote templates now have titles, so you can pick a saved template by name and it seeds the quote’s title, description, line items, and event groups in one click. See the Quote Templates guide for the full setup.
• Template items — if you have a quote template for the inquiry’s event type, it generates line items with calculated quantities based on event length, barista count, and cart count
• Customer-selected add-ons — items the customer chose on your inquiry form
• Auto-include items — catalog items you’ve marked as “Always Include”
• Event details — dates, times, locations, guest counts, and staffing from the inquiry

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Per-Event Breakdown

For inquiries with multiple events, the quote generates a separate set of line items for each event. This ensures accurate pricing — a 6-hour event with 3 baristas gets different quantities than a 2-hour event with 1 barista. Line items are grouped by event so you can easily see the cost breakdown per date.

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Line Items

Each line item on a quote has:

• Item name — from your catalog, or a custom name for one-off charges
• Quantity — can be whole numbers or decimals (e.g., 2.5 hours)
• Unit price — defaults to the catalog price, but you can override it
• Unit — per event, per hour, per day, or per unit
• Tax — optional per-item tax rate

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Catalog vs Custom Items

• Catalog items — select from your catalog. Price, name, and unit are pre-filled but editable.
• Custom items — type in a name, price, and quantity for one-off charges that aren’t in your catalog.

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Tax and Discounts

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Sales Tax

Apply tax on a per-item basis. Set up your tax rates in Settings > Payments, then select the applicable rate for each taxable line item.

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Discounts

Apply a percentage or flat dollar discount to the entire quote. Discounts appear as a separate line on the customer’s quote.

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Tips

Configure an enforced tip percentage or let customers add their own tip when paying.

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Sending Quotes

Once your quote is ready:

1. Review the total and all line items
2. Set a valid until date (optional — gives the customer a deadline to respond)
3. Click Send

The customer receives a link to view and accept the quote through the Customer Portal. You can track when they view it and whether they accept.

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Sending from the quote builder

A Send Quote button now lives directly in the quote builder, so you don’t have to leave the page to get a quote out the door.

• Draft quotes show a Send Quote button — one click emails it to the customer and moves the quote out of draft state.
• Already-sent quotes show Resend Quote with a confirmation prompt, so you can re-deliver the same revision without accidentally double-sending.

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Quote Revisions

Every time you edit a sent quote, Cortado creates a new revision. This preserves the history of what was sent and when. The customer always sees the latest revision. Revisions are useful when:

• A customer requests changes to the pricing
• You need to add or remove services after sending
• Event details change (more guests, longer hours, etc.)

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Draft warning

When a lead has any quote still in Draft, a warning badge appears on the Lead Quotes card reminding you that drafts are not visible to the customer in the portal. Send the quote (or delete the draft) to clear the warning.

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Quote Duplication

Duplicating a quote — from either the Lead Quotes card or the quote detail page — copies its line items, payment schedules, discount, enforced tip, and the calendar event details. This is the fastest way to spin up a revision or a similar quote for a different date. Common uses:

• A repeat customer wants the same package on a new date — duplicate, change the date, send.
• You’re presenting two pricing options for the same lead — duplicate the first, tweak the second.
• A long quote needs a small tweak that you don’t want to risk on the live version — duplicate, edit the copy, then delete or send.

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Sharing and Link Lifetimes

There are two ways a customer ends up on a quote portal link, and each has its own lifetime:

• Email send from Cortado — the most common path. The link in the email is tied to that recipient and expires after 7 days. Engagement (opens, clicks, accept) is tracked per-recipient.
• Copy link from the quote — for sharing in chat, text, or another channel. These direct portal links stay valid for 30 days.
• Multi-recipient share tracking — when a customer forwards an email link to a colleague, the forwarded recipient is tracked separately. You can see every recipient’s view history on the lead detail page.

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Expired link recovery

When a customer opens an expired link in the portal, they see a “Need a new link?” card and can request a fresh one with one click. The new link is emailed to the original recipient and throttled to once every 5 minutes so the link can’t be abused. This means lost or stale links rarely need your intervention.

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Quote Acceptance

When a customer accepts a quote through the portal:

• Events are created automatically from the quote’s event details
• Barista counts, cart counts, and other staffing details carry over
• An invoice is generated from the accepted quote
• The lead moves to the booking stage in your pipeline

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Public and anonymous view tracking

When a quote link is opened — either by the named recipient or by an anonymous shared-link visitor — the view is recorded in the lead’s Activity tab under Quote Interactions. This gives you a full picture of who’s looking at the quote and when, even when the customer forwards the link to a partner or decision-maker. See the Activity guide for how to read the timeline.

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Best Practices

1. Review before sending — double-check quantities and pricing, especially on multi-event quotes
2. Set valid-until dates — creates urgency and prevents stale quotes
3. Use templates — pick a saved template by name to seed title, description, line items, and event groups in one click
4. Clear draft warnings promptly — drafts aren’t visible to your customer, so send or delete them once a quote is no longer a work in progress
5. Duplicate instead of rebuilding — duplication copies line items, payment schedules, discount, tip, and calendar event details
6. Check the Activity tab — quote views are tracked for both named recipients and anonymous shared-link visitors, so you’ll see who’s actually engaging