The Engagement module records how a job begins: the proposal you send a prospective client, the terms it is offered on, and their response.
Before you start
- Engagement must be switched on in Settings → Modules: see Turning modules on and off.
- You need permission to edit engagement. Sending outside the practice is a separate permission.
- Your practice's own details, such as its letterhead and bank details when you ask for a deposit, are set up in Settings → Practice first; your rates and terms of appointment are under Settings → Modules → Engagement, in Fees and Terms of appointment. A proposal cannot be issued without them.
Starting an enquiry
Choose New enquiry on the Projects page. In one step it creates the project at the Enquiry status, its client, its site address and a proposal. You can give:
- a project name, or leave it blank to use the site's first line, or else the client's name;
- the client, from Contacts or someone new, with a second client for a joint enquiry;
- the site address, the same as the client's by default;
- the stage template the proposal starts from, or a blank proposal.
If your practice has no Enquiry status, the form says it will add one. It then counts as an ordinary active status, which you can rename later.
Building the proposal
Open the project's Engagement page. A proposal is built from your service library's templates: its services, inclusions and indicative costs are copied in, so later changes to the library never alter a draft.
While it is a draft you can edit everything in place:
- Fee lines. A fixed line adds to the fee. An hourly line is printed "at £… per hour" and adds nothing, since there is nothing to add until hours are worked.
- The deposit, as a percentage of the fixed fee or a set sum.
- Services, reworded for this job alone.
- Indicative costs, each marked as required or not. Any still unpriced are named in the indicative total.
Tasks and deliverables
A service in your library can list its usual tasks, set on the service's own page, and say whether it is a deliverable by default: something you hand to the client. When a service comes onto a proposal, its tasks and that setting come with it, and you can change either for the job on the proposal's Services tab.
Tasks are not printed on the proposal. To charge for a task on its own, use Price it. That adds a fee line for the task, and you set its amount and wording on the Fee tab like any other line.
If your practice uses Delivery, an accepted proposal's stage, services, tasks and inclusions can be turned into the job's work: see The work on a job.
Issuing
The Issue section lists anything still missing: a client, a fee line, every fee line priced, terms uploaded, bank details when a deposit is asked for, and the practice's details. Fix each, then issue. You are asked to type the proposal's title to confirm.
Issuing freezes the proposal as Rev A, with its PDF and the version of the terms in force at that moment. An issued proposal cannot be edited. To change it, choose Start Rev B: the lines come back as a draft, and every earlier revision stays listed and downloadable.
Sending it
Send an issued revision from the proposal page, choosing the recipients. Each gets their own link and code, as in Sending a drawing. Each recipient has a may accept tick. It is on by default for the project's client and off for anyone else, so an engineer copied in can read and comment but not accept on the client's behalf.
The client sees a plain summary of the fee, deposit, services and indicative costs, then the proposal PDF and the terms. They can comment. When you send Rev B, it goes to whoever had Rev A, and anyone opening Rev A is told a newer one exists.
Acceptance
A client can accept online only if your practice has turned it on, under Settings → Modules → Engagement → Acceptance and links, Online acceptance: tick Let clients accept a proposal online. It is off until you do. You can add a statement of your own there, shown to the client above the Accept control. Whatever the setting, sending, reading and commenting work.
Acceptance is refused after the proposal's open until date. The client is told it has closed and to contact you, and you issue a new revision if the fee still stands. When a client accepts, both sides are emailed who accepted, when, and which revision.
In the same section, under Proposal links and confirmation, you choose how long a sent proposal's link lasts (90 days unless you change it; longer where the proposal is open longer), how long the clients' links last once a proposal is accepted (a number of days, or for the job: until the project is archived and 30 days after), and whether the client's confirmation email carries the proposal and terms as PDFs (off unless you turn it on).
You can also mark a proposal as declined or withdrawn yourself.
This page describes what the software records. It is not advice on contracts or consumer law. Take that from your own adviser, especially before turning on online acceptance.