The quote to cash process, step by step

Quote to cash is the path a job takes from the first request for a price to the money in your account. For a small business it has eight steps: take the brief, send the quote, follow it up, get it accepted, invoice and collect the deposit, deliver the work, invoice the balance, and get paid. The work itself is usually the shortest part. The days are lost in the handovers.

The documents involved, quote, proforma and tax invoice, and when each one is used, are covered in the quote to invoice process. This article follows the money instead, using one worked job from enquiry to final payment.

The eight steps

1. The brief. Collect what changes the price: measurements, quantities, access, deadlines, the budget if the customer will say it. A site visit or a short form does this. Everything you miss here becomes a variation later.

2. The quote. Price the scope as items, with any extras as optional lines, a valid until date and the payment terms, including the deposit. A quote that carries its own terms becomes the agreement when it is accepted.

3. The follow up. Get in touch after the quote is opened, and again before it expires. Timing is covered in when to follow up on a quote.

4. Acceptance. The customer agrees to the quote as offered. Online acceptance with a name and signature is faster than a printed form and leaves a record. Whether that acceptance binds both sides is answered in is an accepted quote legally binding.

5. The deposit. Invoice it at acceptance and make it payable on the spot.

6. Delivery. Do the work. Record any changes in writing as variations before doing them.

7. The balance invoice. Issue it on completion, with a calendar due date and a way to pay.

8. Payment. Remind before and on the due date, then follow up. Mark it paid and close the job.

Where time is lost

Look at the gaps between steps rather than the steps themselves.

Between the quote and the follow up, nothing happens unless you remember. A tracked link that notifies you when the quote is opened turns that gap into a prompt.

Between acceptance and the deposit invoice, a manual process often adds days: the customer says yes by email, you open your accounting software, create the invoice, send it, and the customer pays when they get around to it. In OneCraft that gap is zero. When a quote with a deposit is accepted, a deposit invoice is issued due that day and emailed to the customer, and the accepted screen shows a Pay deposit now button. The balance is created at the same time as a draft.

Between the due date and the first reminder, many businesses wait until the invoice is well overdue before chasing, out of awkwardness. A reminder sent automatically three days before the due date is not awkward at all.

Deposit and balance

In the worked example, Fernleaf Landscapes quotes $8,000 plus $800 GST for paving and planting, with irrigation as an optional extra, a 30% deposit and 21 days validity. The customer accepts on day 6 without the irrigation, so the accepted total stays at $8,800. A deposit invoice for $2,640 is issued due the same day; the customer pays by card that evening. The balance of $6,160 waits as a draft invoice.

Without a deposit, the OneCraft rule is different: acceptance issues one invoice for the whole amount, due in 14 days. For a job with materials bought up front, the deposit is the better choice. What a deposit invoice is covers how to word one.

Tax invoices along the way

If you are registered for GST, each invoice for a taxable supply should be a valid tax invoice: the words tax invoice, your identity and ABN, the date, a description with quantity and price, the GST, and the extent each item is taxable, plus the buyer’s identity or ABN once the sale reaches $1,000. The ATO requires a tax invoice within 28 days of the customer asking for one. Issuing both the deposit and the balance invoices as tax invoices from the start means the customer can claim their GST credits without another request.

Reminders

On day 28 the work is finished and Fernleaf issues and sends the balance invoice due in 14 days, day 42, on the standard reminder preset. The customer gets a reminder three days before the due date and another on it. Payment arrives by bank transfer on day 44, and Fernleaf marks the invoice paid. Had it not, the preset would have continued at three, seven and fourteen days after the due date, never more than six reminders in all. The invoice reminders page lists the presets, and business.gov.au’s advice on unpaid invoices takes over from there: reminder, then a letter of demand, then help with dispute resolution.

Where the money goes

Card payments through a pay link should land in your account, not a middleman’s. In OneCraft, the Pay now button opens Stripe Checkout on the owner’s own connected Stripe account, set up as destination charges, so OneCraft never holds the money. Bank transfers go straight to the account printed on the invoice. Either way, the job is cash complete when the balance clears.

Closing the loop

The process ends with three small jobs. Send a thank you or a receipt. Record why the job was won, since the reasons shape your next quote. And keep the accepted quote: it is the template for the customer’s next job and the evidence if anything about this one is ever disputed.

The quotation example shows a quote laid out for this process, and the AI quote generator drafts one from a brief like Fernleaf’s.