Take quote requests from your storefront

If every job has the same price, online checkout does the job. If the price depends on the details (how far, how long, what is rented), taking payment before you have quoted is how you lose money. Quote requests let the customer start the order and let you finish the price.

Turn on quote-request mode

The Booking mode setting (Settings, "Checkout or request a quote") has two options:

• Checkout ("Customers pay online and book instantly."). This is the default.
• Request a quote ("Customers send a request instead of paying. No prices are shown and nothing is reserved until you reply.")

Two things worth knowing before you switch. Quote-request mode hides every price on your storefront, even if you had them showing. And it is store-wide, not per product: you cannot have instant checkout for some items and quote requests for others.

If your prices are fixed and public, stay on Checkout. Quote mode is for jobs where the price depends on the details.

What the customer does to request a quote

In quote-request mode the cart's checkout button becomes Request a quote and opens a Request a quote page instead of checkout. It shows:

1. Your request: the rental dates and the items in the cart.

2. Your details: Name, Email, Phone (optional), and Notes (optional) (up to 2,000 characters).

They click Send quote request. The page states it plainly underneath: nothing is reserved or charged, and you will reply with a quote. On success they see Request sent and your store name with "will send you a quote."

A quote request does not hold any stock. Nothing is reserved until the customer accepts your quote.

Where requests land

Every request becomes an order in quote status. Find them in Orders on the Quote requests tab (between Upcoming and Late). That view lists quote orders only, newest first, with a fixed set of columns: number, customer, from, until, lines, created. Pricing a line does not reshuffle the list.

Three things are different on this tab:

• Rows that came from the storefront carry a Storefront chip.
• The status and payment filters are disabled there. The status filter's tooltip says it: "Quote requests lists quote orders only."
• You cannot export from this view. The message is "The Quote requests view can't be exported. Switch to another view to export."

You also get an email for each request: the subject starts with "New quote request" followed by your store name, and the body carries the customer name, dates, line count, and a link to open the order in OnTote. The customer's contact details and notes stay on the order, not in your inbox.

Price the request and send the quote

The request arrives with unpriced lines. To price it:

1. Open the order. If it is in quote status, click Edit as draft, then Confirm: edit as draft, to move it back to draft. (This kills any active quote link, which is the point: the old quote is no longer the current one.)

2. Price the lines and save.

3. Click Generate quote. Set Valid until: the default is 30 days out, or the earliest active hold expiry on a held order. The date cannot be in the past.

4. The quote PDF lists the lines, subtotal, tax, deposit, fees, and a total. It has no due date and no payments table: it states a price, not a debt. It prints "Valid until" under the issued date.

Generate quote is offered on draft, quote, and hold orders. On anything further along, the button is disabled with the reason, and generating an invoice is the right move instead.

Then, in Agreement & Documents, click Create quote link. The link URL appears once in the Quote link field; click Copy link (it reads Copied) and send it to the customer the way you normally do. While it is active, the page reads "Quote link active since {date}" with Copy link and Revoke.

The rules, in one place:

• A link needs a current, non-voided quote PDF. Without one, the button is disabled with "Generate a quote first."
• There is one active link per order. Creating a new one revokes the old one; you get a confirm first ("This replaces the link you sent before.") with Replace and copy and Cancel.
• The URL is returned once, at creation. If you navigate away or reload without copying it, create a new one. The old one stops working.
• Revoke kills the link immediately. So does anything that moves the order out of quote status (editing as draft, confirming, cancelling) or archiving it. That is expected behavior, not a bug: the quote the link pointed to is no longer current.

Only owner, manager, and office roles see these controls.

What the customer does with your quote

The customer opens your link and sees "Your quote": "{store} prepared this quote for you. Review it, then accept or decline." The page shows the items, quantities, and the full totals (subtotal, tax, fees, total, deposit due), plus a link to download the quote PDF.

If you offer pay on delivery, the page asks How would you like to pay? with Pay now and Pay on delivery. Then one button:

• Accept and pay $X when money is due now. Clicking it places a hold on the items and sends the customer to payment. When payment clears, the booking is confirmed: "Quote accepted. Thank you. Your booking with {store} is confirmed."
• Accept quote when nothing is due now (for example, pay on delivery). Same confirmation, no card step.

Before accepting, the customer must tick the rental agreement checkbox if you have one set. Until they do, the accept button is disabled with "Accept the rental agreement to continue."

Or they click Decline. A dialog asks "Decline this quote? {store} will be told.", and Yes, decline records it. The page then reads "You declined this quote. {store} has been told." The decline is recorded on the order, so you know without guessing.

Two more things the customer may see: "This quote has expired" if they open the link after the Valid until date, and "This quote was updated" if you regenerated the quote after sending the link (send them a fresh link). If they were halfway through paying and come back later, "Acceptance in progress" offers Continue to payment.

Failure modes

• "Generate a quote first." when clicking Create quote link: the order has no current quote PDF. Generate the quote, then create the link.
• "Valid until must be today or later.": pick today or a later date.
• The link died after you edited the order. Expected: moving quote to draft revokes the link. Regenerate the quote, then create a new link.
• The Quote requests tab will not export. Expected. Switch to the All view to export.

You can switch modes any time. Changing Booking mode affects only what the storefront offers next; orders already placed keep working as they were.

For generating the documents behind all of this (quotes, contracts, invoices, packing slips), see Create invoices, quotes, contracts and packing slips.