Estimates and Proformas

6.1 Recommended Sales Flow

1. Qualify a lead into a customer and deal.
2. Add products or services and expected value to the deal.
3. Open the deal and select Create Estimate.
4. Review line items, discounts, tax, validity, notes, terms, currency, and payment instructions.
5. Save the draft, then select Review & Send.
6. SikaBooks queues the email with a frozen PDF and secure customer-review link.
7. The customer may accept, decline with a reason, or request changes.
8. For requested changes, create a revision. The sent version remains immutable.
9. After acceptance, choose one path: create a proforma draft or create the CRM draft invoice directly. Once one path is used, SikaBooks blocks the competing conversion path.
10. When Accounting is enabled, the accepted proforma-to-invoice flow may synchronize the draft invoice to Accounting. It never posts automatically.

6.2 Estimate Lifecycle

• Draft — Editable and not yet issued.
• Sent — Delivery succeeded and the issued snapshot is frozen.
• Viewed — The customer opened the secure review page.
• Accepted — The customer or an authorized salesperson recorded acceptance.
• Declined — A decline reason is retained with the document activity.
• Changes requested — The customer supplied revision instructions; use Revise to create a new version.
• Expired — The validity date passed before acceptance.

Sent estimates may be resent without changing the frozen commercial content. A failed resend does not erase the previous successful-delivery state.

6.3 Proforma Lifecycle

To prepare a proforma without a deal, go to CRM > Proformas > Create Proforma. Select an active customer you are authorized to work with, enter the lines, currency, validity date, and tax treatment, then save the draft. No Deal is created automatically. You can still create a proforma from a Deal when you want pipeline lineage. The Create action requires the existing Proforma creation permission, not Accounting workspace access.

An accepted estimate may be converted into one proforma draft. The conversion is idempotent, so repeated clicks cannot create duplicate proformas. An estimate that already produced an invoice cannot also produce a proforma, and an estimate with a proforma must be invoiced through that proforma.

Proformas use the same draft, send, view, response, revision, PDF, delivery-history, and expiry controls as estimates. Only an accepted proforma can create a CRM draft invoice. A proforma never creates a journal entry.

Customer Reference and Prepared by: Enter the customer's PO number, project code, or other reference in Customer Reference. This optional value is separate from the generated proforma number and is searchable. Prepared by defaults to you. CRM managers and owners may choose another active business user; ordinary representatives cannot impersonate another preparer. The printed name is preserved when the document is issued, revised, or converted, even if the person's account later changes. Created by and the assigned salesperson remain separate audit and ownership fields.

Every CRM customer receives a permanent Customer No. such as 1001. It is unique within the business, searchable, and not editable or reused after archiving. New documents retain that number in their customer snapshot. No customer UUIDs or existing document numbers are replaced.

Customer-facing final PDFs omit internal Draft, Sent, and Viewed badges. An unsent draft download is marked DRAFT PREVIEW; it does not mark the document sent. Use Review & Send to review the recipient, subject, message, and PDF attachment. After the email service accepts the message, the sending history records it as sent. This is not proof that the customer received or opened it. If you shared the document by WhatsApp, handed it over, or used another external channel, choose Mark sent externally and record how and when. No email is sent by that action.

6.4 Customer Review Portal

The delivery email contains a temporary signed link. From that page, the customer can:

• Review the immutable document and download its PDF.
• Accept the estimate or proforma.
• Decline and provide a reason.
• Request specific changes.

Expired or already-responded documents remain readable but cannot receive another response. Signed portal URLs are generated when needed and are not stored in CRM audit metadata.

6.5 Controls and Troubleshooting

• A document needs a customer email, a future or current validity date, and a positive total before delivery.
• Delivery failures leave the draft available for correction and retry.
• Archived customers remain visible through stored snapshots, but new delivery, revision, and conversion actions are disabled.
• A document already converted to an invoice cannot be revised or converted again.
• If no email arrives, review the delivery state and document activity before resending.
• If the sending outcome is awaiting confirmation, do not resend: the email may already have been accepted. The document stays locked while the sending acknowledgement is recovered or reviewed.
• After ten minutes, a CRM manager or owner who can send the document can choose Review sending outcome in its sending history. Check the email logs, record the verified outcome and evidence, and save. This review sends no email. Known email acceptance cannot be changed to "not sent". A confirmed failed attempt unlocks a draft; a confirmed sent attempt keeps the issued version intact.