Stage 4 of 6: Create your first Quote

Welcome to your fourth step with NextMinute. In this stage you'll build a quote, share it with your customer as a PDF, and track its acceptance - then turn the accepted work into tasks you can cost against. We'll go through it in the same order as the video.

1. Create a quote on desktop or mobile

Create a quote on desktop or mobile → Create a Quote – Desktop · Create a Quote – Mobile

You can create a quote two ways. From within a job — open the job and use its Quotes folder, which links the quote directly to that job (handy if you like to create the job first to capture site-inspection photos and notes). Or standalone — go to Account → Quotes → Add, which suits businesses that only create the job once the quote is accepted.

When you add a quote you'll get a few starting points. The main one is a blank quote (similar to building from scratch in Xero). As you build up a library, you can also start from an existing quote, a template, or even import files from take-off software.

Give the quote a title — keep it as Quote, or rename it to Estimate or Budget for cost-plus jobs. The top of the builder shows the customer, quote reference and your logo; the section below is where you build it.

Build it out in stages. Each "section" in NextMinute is a stage of works. We'd always encourage breaking your quote out by stage — it's what powers the back-costing report later, so you can see exactly where you've gone over or under, stage by stage. For example, a landscaper might add: Site prep and clearing, Rubbish removal, and Timber sleeper wall (use the little page-with-a-plus icon to add each new section).

Add your items. Inside each section, add a new item and pick one of four types:

• Labour — pulls from the labour rates you set up under Sale Items.
• Materials — from an imported supplier list, or added as you go. (If you don't import a price book because prices change too often, add a single materials line, list everything in the description, and enter a total cost with a markup % — e.g. $375 + 20%.)
• Disbursements — consumables like skip-bin hire, equipment hire and fuel.
• Other — insurance, admin fees, project management and subcontractor costs.

💡 Can't split it neatly? If you can't break out supply vs install cleanly, you can lump everything under an Other item free-text field. The trade-off: you won't be able to compare labour-vs-labour and materials-vs-materials when costs come in against the job.

2. Speed things up with templates

Speed things up with templates → Create a Quote from Pre-Built Templates

For work you quote regularly, don't reinvent the wheel. You can build templates from an existing quote or from scratch, then start new quotes from them. It's the fastest way to keep your pricing and layout consistent across similar jobs.

3. Export or share the quote as a PDF

Export or share the quote as a PDF → How to extract your Quote/Invoice as a PDF File

Use Preview and Send at the top to see how the quote will look. You often won't want the customer seeing every line item, quantity and price, so use the print options to control what's shown: tick the checkbox to hide columns when printing (e.g. hide description, quantity, units and sell price, but show a total per section). Apply to all sections and set as default so you don't have to repeat it on every quote.

When you're happy with the markup, subtotal and margin, send it to the customer by selecting their email. A default message template appears — you can make these more bespoke under Admin → Messaging and pick from different templates. The customer receives the quote as a PDF they can digitally accept.

4. Track acceptance

Track acceptance → Quote Acceptance

Once the customer accepts, the quote shows a date and time stamp and accepted by the relevant customer, so you always know where things stand.

💡 Turn the accepted quote into tasks. To cost-track by stage, hit More → Create tasks from quote → all sections. Each stage becomes a scheduled task (site prep, rubbish removal, timber sleeper wall), so the crew can timesheet against the right stage rather than the whole job. To enforce this, edit the job and turn on "Timesheet and timer entries must be added to tasks." Costs logged then flow into the back-costing report, breaking down estimated vs actual cost, variance and revenue per stage.

💡 Handling variations. When a variation comes up, create a new blank quote and rename it (e.g. Variation 01 – Stone wall build), then add the relevant items and create a task for it. It links to the same back-costing report, so nothing is separated and everything stays in one view.

💡 Tip: When a quote is accepted you can carry its pricing and line items straight across into the Job — no double entry.

✅ Done when...

You've created and sent a quote, and you know how to track its acceptance.

Next step → Stage 5: Invoice for your Job