HootQuill
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Your first quote

From an empty account to a signed agreement. About ten minutes, and you do not need your catalog imported or QuickBooks connected to get through it.

A quote in HootQuill needs two things before you can build one: somebody to address it to, and a published template to build it from. That second requirement catches most people out on day one, so it is worth knowing why it exists — every quote pins the exact wording it was built from. If you edit your terms next March, the agreement somebody signed this week still says what they signed. That guarantee is only possible if there is a published version to pin in the first place.

Set up

  1. Step 1. Add your company details

    SettingsCompany. Your name, address and logo go on every document you send, so this is worth five minutes now rather than discovering a blank letterhead on a quote that has already gone out.

  2. Step 2. Add a client

    ClientsAdd client. The company name and one contact with an email address is enough — the contact is who receives the quote and who signs it.

    Have a list already? Import them from a spreadsheet instead and do the whole book at once.

  3. Step 3. Add a few catalog items

    CatalogAdd item. An item is anything you charge for, with a price and a billing period — monthly, annual or one-time. Add the three or four you sell most; you can fill in the rest later.

    You can type a one-off line directly onto a quote without adding it to the catalog, so nothing here blocks you. But items in the catalog are what drive the rest of the product: they decide which clauses appear in the contract, and they are what gets linked to QuickBooks.

  4. Step 4. Publish a template

    TemplatesNew template, lay out the sections you want, then press Publish version.

    A brand-new account has no templates at all. HootQuill does not ship somebody else’s contract wording, because a services agreement you did not read is a liability rather than a head start — so paste in the terms you already use. Templates and clauses covers how to make sections appear only when they are relevant, but for a first quote a single version with your standard wording is plenty.

Build the quote

  1. Step 5. Create it

    QuotesCreate quote. Give it a title the client will recognise, pick the client and the contact, and choose the template version to build from.

  2. Step 6. Add your line items

    Pull items in from the catalog and set quantities. Discounts can be applied per line and are exact to the cent — the totals look after themselves.

  3. Step 7. Set the term

    Term (months) is required as soon as anything on the quote recurs, and optional for one-time work. Thirty-six for a three-year agreement.

    This is not paperwork. The term is what gives the agreement an end date, and the end date is what stops recurring billing running forever and what puts the renewal on your Renewals screen before it renews itself.

  4. Step 8. Say how it is paid

    When something recurs you also choose How it is paid:

    • As it runs — monthly charges bill monthly, annual charges yearly.
    • In full up front — the whole term on one invoice at signing.

    This prints on the agreement as a term of the contract, so it is not a setting anyone can quietly change their mind about afterwards. It also decides what gets created in QuickBooks later.

The quote builder, showing the Term field and the two payment-plan options

Term and How it is paid sit together, below the line items. Both print on the agreement.

Send it

Save the quote, then open it and press Send to client. The choice of what you are asking for is made there, at the moment of sending, rather than being a setting you picked earlier and forgot:

  • Ask them to sign — a signed agreement, with an e-signature and a full audit trail.
  • Ask them to approve — a recorded yes. Their name, the time, no signature. For work that does not need a contract.

The client gets an email with a link. They do not need an account and never will — the link itself is the credential. They read the agreement, consent, sign, and the executed copy comes back to you with its certificate of completion.

What happens next

The moment it is signed the document is sealed, filed against the client, and the agreement starts counting toward its end date. If you use QuickBooks, this is where you push the invoice and any recurring billing — see How billing works.

← Getting startedImporting your clients and catalog →

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