Streamline client onboarding and billing operations with modern proposals. With proposals, you can:
Send professional proposals and engagement letters
Outline and scope your services
Collect payment information upfront from the client
Have clients electronically sign and agree to your terms
Auto-generate and activate invoicing once signed
You can send a proposal without requesting a payment method, including when your firm does not have an active billing account. To collect a card or bank account during signing, your billing account must be active.
The Components of a Proposal
Introduction
This is where you can create a personalized introduction for your client. In this section, you can:
Select the signatory
Choose a proposal start date
Add an intro video for your client
Add an intro message for your client
Services
This is where you can add and scope services you will be billing your clients for. You can add:
One-time and/or recurring services
Define the scope of work
Add the pricing, discounts, or tax associated with the service items
Add add-on services to upsell prospects and increase revenue (available with the Scale Plan)
Payments
This is where you can choose how your client can pay for the services. With an active billing account, you can accept credit/debit cards, ACH transfers, or both. You can require clients to provide payment information before signing to automate future payments.
You can also choose not to request a payment method. Clients can then sign without entering payment details.
Terms
In this section, you can include your engagement letter and the terms your client will agree to. Upload a PDF or write your terms directly in the editor.
Preview Proposal
Once you finish creating the proposal, you can preview it and see what it will look like before sending it to the client.
Create a proposal
Open Billing > Proposals & ELs and click Create Proposal. Complete the 4 steps below.
1. Introduction
Choose the client and signatories, give the proposal a name, and set its start date. You can add an Intro video, an Intro Message, and client reminders.
Choose email, SMS, or both for delivery. Use Redirect after signing if you want clients to visit a specific page after signing.
2. Services
Add the services, scope, pricing, discounts, and taxes for the engagement. Services can be one-time, recurring, deposit, or hourly. You can offer up to 3 packages for clients to choose from.
Choose the billing schedule and whether generated invoices should be sent automatically or kept as drafts for review. Without an active billing account, generated invoices and recurring schedules remain drafts.
Optional add-on services are available with the Scale Plan. If the option is available in your account, clients can choose which optional services to include.
3. Payments
If your billing account is active, choose:
Request a payment method: Clients can add a card or bank account when accepting the proposal. Select Allow Credit/Debit cards, Allow ACH Transfer, or both. Turn on Require payment details if clients must enter payment details to accept.
Don't request a payment method: Clients accept without a payment step. You can still invoice them.
If your billing account is not active, the proposal is sent without requesting a payment method. The Payments step explains your account's setup options.
The payment-method choice is set when you first send the proposal. Activating your billing account later does not add a payment step to a proposal already sent.
4. Engagement Letter/Terms
Upload a PDF under Upload terms & conditions, or write your terms in the editor. To switch between the 2 options, remove the uploaded file or clear the typed terms first.
Use the available tokens, including {{client_name}} and {{contact_name}}, to personalize typed terms.
Preview and send
Click Save Draft to continue later, or Preview & Send to review the proposal before sending it. From the preview, click Send to Client.
Use Save as Template to reuse the proposal structure for future clients.
Send proposals to multiple clients
In Introduction, use the client picker to select multiple clients, client groups, or all clients.
Choose Send to default contact or Send to all contacts.
Choose delivery methods. Email is included in bulk proposals; you can also include SMS.
Complete the remaining steps. Save the drafts or preview and click Send to Clients.
Financial Cents creates a separate proposal for each matching client.
You can also select existing proposals on the proposals list. Use Send Draft Proposal for selected drafts, Send Reminder for eligible sent proposals, or Delete Proposal for drafts. Reminders are not sent to draft proposals.
Set the default price display
Open Billing > Settings and select Payments.
In Proposal Preferences, find Price Display.
Check Show pre-tax prices to clients.
Click Update Preferences.
This sets the default price display for new proposals and their PDFs. You can change the setting for an individual proposal in its editor.
Give team members view-only access
Open Invite Team > User Permissions.
Find the role you want to update.
Turn on View Proposals. The change saves when you toggle the permission.
View Proposals lets team members view proposals without creating, editing, sending, cancelling, or deleting them. Those actions require Manage Proposals, which also enables viewing. A team member's client-access permissions still determine which clients' proposals they can see.
What clients see
Clients review the services and terms, complete the payment step if requested, and sign the proposal. Try the walkthrough to see the experience:
Need help setting up a proposal? Open the chat bubble in Financial Cents to contact support.