23 September Release — Digital Signatures, Board View, Subbie Lines + More
Morning, everyone.
Krishna here. It's been a while since our last release announcement, so this one has a lot to it: digital signatures, a new way to view your estimates and invoices, subbie line items, payment receipts, and more have all landed.
Quick note: we ship every day. This article covers the major stuff worth knowing about. If you're unsure how anything works, ask Sammy in chat. He can walk you through it step by step.
Here's what's new.
Get your quotes signed, not just accepted#
Until now, an accepted quote told you one thing: someone clicked Accept. Not who, and not with what authority. That's fixed, and you can go a step further and ask for a signature.
Every acceptance now has a name on it. When a client accepts (or declines) your quote online, they enter their name, and optionally their position and email, before they can submit. That name shows on the estimate, in Messages and on the client's activity timeline, so "who accepted this?" finally has an answer. If a client accepts over the phone or sends a purchase order instead, mark the estimate Accepted and Sammy asks how it was accepted and by whom, and lets you attach the PO number and file.
Ask for a signature. Turn on Require a signature to accept in the quote's proposal options before you send, or make it the default for every new quote under Settings → Terms → Templates → 04 Quote acceptance. When your client taps Accept quote, they draw their signature with a finger, pen or mouse, or type it and adopt it, then confirm the acceptance statement. Prefer paper? When a signature is required, the proposal PDF ends with a blank Client acceptance block they can print, sign and scan.
You both get the signed copy. Sammy fills the acceptance block with their name, position, signature and date, adds a Certificate of Acceptance, and emails the signed PDF to your client and to you. The original proposal is kept exactly as you sent it, and you can grab the signed copy any time from Download signed copy on the estimate. One honest note: Sammy records exactly what the signer enters. If a client forwards the link, whoever is holding it can sign, so the certificate shows the details that person gave.
Full walkthroughs: Requiring a signature on quotes and Who accepted my quote?.
A new view for all your hard work#
Your estimates and invoices now have a Board view: every job laid out in columns by stage, so you can see at a glance what's still a draft, what's sitting with clients, what's been accepted and what's been paid. Each column carries a running total, so you can see what your pipeline is actually worth.
Open Projects on a computer, pick Estimates or Invoices, and switch between Table and Board at the bottom of the page. Your invoices live here now too, so there's no separate Invoices button in the sidebar.
Full walkthrough: Working with projects.
A Subbie line for the work you sub out#
Most of you subbie out some part of a job. The builder subs the tiling, the plumber brings in a concreter for the slab cut. Until now that work got jammed into Labour or Other, which threw out your hours and your markup. Sammy now has a Subbie line type built for it, alongside Materials, Labour and Other.
A subbie line is a package price from another trade, and keeping it separate matters. Your crew's hours stay honest, because the tiler's three days don't count as your team on site. Subbie packages get their own markup, so you're not stacking your full labour margin on top of another trade's price (set it under Settings → AI Settings → Basic trade customisation). And the takeoff gets a Subbies section with its own hours total, so you can see what's going out to other trades at a glance.
Sammy will only put a line down as Subbie once you've told him what you subcontract. Add a subbie rate rule (Type: Subbie) if you know what you pay for a type of work, or drop a line like "I subcontract all electrical and plumbing" into his Advanced instructions. From then on he prices that work as subbie lines. He won't quietly re-type lines on estimates you've already built. If you want him to, open the estimate's menu and choose Re-categorise lines.
Your clients never see the word "subbie". Proposals, PDFs and invoices look exactly as they did.
Full walkthrough: Telling Sammy what work you subcontract out.
Payment receipts#
Your client pays, and a week later their bookkeeper asks for a receipt. Re-sending the invoice and hoping that counts is over.
When the money lands, tap Mark as Paid and Sammy now asks for the payment date and method, so the receipt and the PAID stamp on the invoice show the real date, not a guess made weeks later. Flip on Email a receipt in the same screen and the receipt email opens ready to check and send. Or send one any time later: on any paid invoice, the main button is now Send Receipt.
The receipt is a one-page, branded PAYMENT RECEIPT PDF: who paid, how much, when, by what method, and which invoice it settles. It's deliberately not another tax invoice, because your client already has one of those. It works on deposit and progress invoices too, and on invoices paid through Xero once the payment syncs. Send it as many times as you need.
Full walkthrough: Sending a payment receipt.
Follow-ups in your own words#
Automatic proposal follow-ups chase unanswered quotes for you on days 2, 5 and 10. Until now the wording was Sammy's. Now it can be yours.
Tap any follow-up date on the send screen or in Messages to open the Follow-up preview, tap Edit under the email you want to change, and write it your way. Keep fields like [Client first name] and [Proposal] where you want Sammy to fill in the client's name and the link to the quote. Tick Use for future proposals before you save and that reminder's wording becomes your default from then on. Each day's reminder is saved separately, so editing day 2 doesn't touch days 5 and 10.
If you're on a team, everyone sees the same wording for a given proposal. Your future-proposals wording stays personal to you. Follow-ups are a Pro feature.
Full walkthrough: Customising proposal follow-up messages.
Smaller bits worth knowing#
- The mobile app got a proper going-over. Bigger buttons, one + New button, an Actions menu, and search and filters across your lists.
- Choose how your clients see GST. Turn on Include GST in prices on any estimate or invoice and every line price, rate and group total shows with GST already added. The summary at the bottom still shows the subtotal, GST and total. Want it that way every time? Turn on Show prices inc GST under Settings → Business. An invoice made from an estimate keeps the estimate's setting.
- Bring your client list in from a spreadsheet. Go to Clients, tap Import CSV, and drop in a CSV or Excel export from anywhere: Xero, ServiceM8, Tradify, your accountant. Sammy matches the columns for you and skips anyone whose email is already in your book, so you can import the same list twice without doubling up. Guide: Importing your client list from a spreadsheet.
- Progress claims and final claims. Under Convert to Invoice, alongside Deposit you'll now find Progress claim and Final claim, plus an Invoiced to date line showing what you've billed and been paid on the job so far. The final claim works out the exact remainder for you, and Sammy warns you if you're about to take a second deposit or claim past the quote total. Guide: Deposits, progress claims and final claims. Note: if you don't use Sammy for your invoicing, no worries, configurable progress claims on proposals are coming next week too!
- Sammy remembers your past quotes. Ask him "what did we charge the Jones place for the hot water unit?" or "set this out like the last bathroom we did" and he searches your previous estimates, reads the one you mean, and asks which you meant if a few match. He'll tell you which quote he used, and he never quietly re-prices the current job from an old one.
- Sign in with Xero. If you live in Xero, you can now sign up for Sammy, or sign in, with the Sign in with Xero button on the login screen. Already have a Sammy account under the same email? It signs you into that one, no duplicate account. And Sammy is now a certified Xero app: we've passed Xero's review of how we connect, what we access and how we push your invoices across.
That's the lot for this one. As always, tell us what you need. We read every email, and we'll pick up the phone and listen.
Cheers, Krishna