How quotes, contracts and invoices connect

An accepted quote is not the end of anything. It is the start of two other documents, and Riffit builds both from it without you retyping a line.

Most invoicing tools treat this as a chain. Quote, then contract, then invoice, in that order, each one a fresh form. Riffit treats it as a hub. The accepted quote sits in the middle and both documents come off it, independently.

That difference is the whole of this page.

What an accepted quote can become

Two things, with different rules.

• A contract. Once.
• An invoice. As many times as the job needs.

The asymmetry is not an accident. You agree terms with a client one time. You bill them as often as the payment schedule says.

One contract, and only one

The first time you turn a quote into a contract, Riffit records which contract it made. Try it again and you get pointed back at the contract that already exists rather than a second one.

This matters more than it sounds. Two contracts for one job is not a duplicate you can quietly delete. It is two versions of what was agreed, and no way to tell which one the client saw.

Your quote's line items come across as the contract's deliverables, one per line. A line with a quantity above 1 carries it, so "Landing page (x3)" arrives written that way.

Many invoices, because most jobs do not pay in one go

Billing an accepted quote gives you three choices.

• The whole quote. One invoice for the full amount. This is what happens when you convert from WhatsApp.
• Specific line items. Pick the parts you have delivered. They are priced from the quote, so the numbers cannot drift from what the client agreed.
• A flat amount. A deposit, or a milestone, at a figure you type.

One detail on that last option, because it is the one people get wrong. The flat amount is GST-inclusive. It is what the client actually pays and what counts against the quote's total, so Riffit works the subtotal backwards out of it rather than adding GST on top. Type 50,000 for a deposit and the client is asked for 50,000.

Every invoice made this way stays linked to the quote it came from, which is how a quote worth 3,00,000 can carry four invoices against it and still show you what is left.

Billing a signed contract is a different move

A signed contract can also become an invoice, from the same chat. It looks similar and it is not the same thing.

It carries three pieces across: the client, the amount, and the subject. Those become a single line item. The contract's own breakdown does not come with it.

That is correct rather than a shortcut. A contract's money is one agreed figure for one piece of work. It is not an itemised price list, so splitting it into lines would be inventing detail the document never had.

Bill the same contract twice and Riffit tells you it is already billed. It matches on the original agreement, so billing version 2 of an amended contract still counts as billing that job.

Nothing gets sent on its own

Converting anything produces a draft. The invoice exists, it is numbered, and it has gone nowhere. You review it and send it when you want to.

Riffit will tell you as much when it makes one. Nothing was sent yet.

Where each one happens

Contracts are made on the dashboard because signing them properly needs a screen. Once one is signed, though, billing it takes a WhatsApp message like anything else.

The short version

One accepted quote. One contract at most. As many invoices as the schedule needs. Everything arrives as a draft, and everything stays linked to what it came from.