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Guide · about 8 minutes

From first enquiry to money in the bank.

One job, start to finish, in a brand-new SiteView account. Every screen below is the actual app, captured as we went. The company — Ridgeline Builders — and its customer, Mara Whitfield, are invented, and so is every address and dollar figure in the shots.

What you'll do
  1. The enquiry lands in Messages
  2. Add them as a lead
  3. Build the estimate
  4. Send it — and see what they see
  5. They approve and sign
  6. Turn it into an invoice, and open the job
  7. Record the payment
  8. It shows up everywhere it should
1

The enquiry lands in Messages

Whatever the source — Thumbtack, Angi, your website form, a plain email — it arrives in one inbox with the source already on it. Nothing to copy anywhere. You can reply from here and it goes out from your address, and the quick replies underneath save you typing the same three things every day.

A new Thumbtack enquiry sitting in Messages, with the homeowner’s details, what they want, and a reply box that sends from your own address.
A new Thumbtack enquiry sitting in Messages, with the homeowner’s details, what they want, and a reply box that sends from your own address.Tap to enlarge
2

Add them as a lead

Add as lead pulls everything across — name, phone, email, address, what they asked for — into a lead record. Until you do that, an enquiry is just an enquiry: it is not in your funnel and it is not in your numbers. That is deliberate, so a stray message never becomes a fake lead.

The lead record: contact details, where they came from, what they want, and the conversation so far.
The lead record: contact details, where they came from, what they want, and the conversation so far.Tap to enlarge
3

Build the estimate

Add your line items with a price and your cost against each. Describe the work in the line — homeowners read these, and a line that explains itself closes better than a number on its own. Your markup and PM fee are applied from your own settings, and only the people you allow ever see the cost column.

The estimate in the office: line items with descriptions, price and cost, and the running total.
The estimate in the office: line items with descriptions, price and cost, and the running total.Tap to enlarge
4

Send it — and see what they see

Sending mints a private link. The homeowner opens it on their phone: your company at the top, the scope written out, the total, your terms, and one clear button. No PDF to download, no app to install, nothing to print.

The estimate as the homeowner sees it on their own phone — scope, total, terms, and a single Approve button.
The estimate as the homeowner sees it on their own phone — scope, total, terms, and a single Approve button.Tap to enlarge
5

They approve and sign

They type their name and sign, right there. The document locks with their name, the signature and a timestamp on it, and your inbox tells you it happened.

The signed confirmation the homeowner sees the moment they approve.
The signed confirmation the homeowner sees the moment they approve.Tap to enlarge
And the same estimate back in your Estimates list, now marked signed.
And the same estimate back in your Estimates list, now marked signed.Tap to enlarge
6

Turn it into an invoice, and open the job

On a signed estimate, Convert to invoice asks one question: which job does this belong to? Pick New job from this estimate and SiteView opens the job, sets the contract value to the estimate total, and creates the invoice line already linked to it. Existing client with more work? Point it at their current job instead.

The convert dialog asking which job the invoice syncs with.
The convert dialog asking which job the invoice syncs with.Tap to enlarge
The job that just opened, with the contract value already on it.
The job that just opened, with the contract value already on it.Tap to enlarge
7

Record the payment

The job’s Payments tab holds the money side: the contract, what is scheduled, what has come in, and what is still owed. When a cheque arrives, hit Record a payment and put the amount against each line it covers. One cheque can cover two invoices — type the split and it lands in both. Nothing is filled in for you on purpose: guessing at your money and being wrong is worse than asking.

The Payments tab before: contract, scheduled, received and balance due, with two open invoices.
The Payments tab before: contract, scheduled, received and balance due, with two open invoices.Tap to enlarge
One cheque split across both invoices. The running total is the payment — there is no second number to reconcile.
One cheque split across both invoices. The running total is the payment — there is no second number to reconcile.Tap to enlarge
After: one invoice part-paid, one closed, and the balance due updated by itself.
After: one invoice part-paid, one closed, and the balance due updated by itself.Tap to enlarge
8

It shows up everywhere it should

That is the whole point of keeping one record from first call to final cheque. The money reports in the month it arrived. The balance still owed is right. The client’s thread carries the payment. And the lead that started it now has a real number attached to it.

The dashboard afterwards: money collected this month, what is still to collect, and the payment in the activity feed.
The dashboard afterwards: money collected this month, what is still to collect, and the payment in the activity feed.Tap to enlarge

Now do it with one of your own jobs.

Reading it only gets you so far. Put a real estimate through and you'll know in an afternoon whether this fits how you work.

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