After a Quote Is Approved

When the customer approves (or you record acceptance), an approved quote becomes exactly one of two things, decided by its work type. It can create a service contract — pool companies see Maintenance Plan, aquatic companies see Pond Contract — at Sales and BillingContracts. Or it can create a standalone job on the board instead. A work type never does both, and some do neither: approval then only records the acceptance.

Either outcome happens automatically. That is the step people expect to do by hand. You do not.

1. 1

   Confirm the quote is Approved

   Open it under Sales and BillingQuotes. Status must be Approved.

2. 2

   Open the contract

   Find it under Sales and BillingContracts. Check the billing day and the rate now — that is the date and amount the customer will see if the plan bills monthly. A plan that bills the month the invoice goes out in, starts this month and is approved after this month's billing day (a quote starting October 12, approved October 12, on a plan billed on the 1st) already has this month's invoice as a draft under Sales and BillingInvoices. The automatic run only drafts a month on its billing day, so October is drafted at approval, with a note saying why, and the office gets a notification. It is never sent automatically. Review and send it. This happens only when the start date (or the First billing month, when later) is in this month. A plan that starts in an earlier month — a backdated start, or a quote with blank dates, whose term starts January 1 — has nothing drafted at approval, this month included, and the office gets a notification saying this month was not invoiced. Create the months the customer owes for with + Create Invoice; its amber note counts the periods already past. A contract flagged Check this contract's billing drafts nothing at approval; when it starts this month, clearing the check offers this month.

3. 3

   Check visits

   Recurring work types generate visits on their interval (every 7 days for pool Routine Service by default), or on fixed weekdays when the work type uses Set weekdays. They show on the schedule and stay tied to this plan's billing.

When approving creates nothing

A work type with both boxes off — a pool Equipment Repair, say — leaves an approved quote with no contract and no job. So the work does not get forgotten, the quote page shows an Approved — no job yet card at the top, the office notification for that approval reads "Create the job or invoice from the quote.", and the Quotes list shows No job yet under Approved. Office roles see the buttons. The card and the No job yet marker show only for a quote approved in the last 60 days, so older approved quotes your office already handled by hand do not all light up. On an older quote, Create Job and Create Invoice are in the quote's Actions menu instead:

• Create Job creates the same job approval would have created: the customer's site, scheduled for the next business day with nobody assigned. If the work type needs a service contract on the site and exactly one covers it, the job is linked to that contract. OpsVara takes you to the new job so you can set the date and crew. A quote can only ever have one job — clicking again opens the one that exists. If the site needs an active permit first, no job is created and the card says so; finish the permit and click again.
• Create Invoice drafts an invoice from the quote with no job: the lines the customer approved, each at the price they signed (a line's own discount comes off that line, so a $600 pump at 10% off is invoiced at $540), the quote's overall discount shown as a discount line, and the tax rate signed on the quote (your company's rate when the quote has none). An invoice drafted from the quote's job once the work is done bills the same way. Review it and send it as usual. It does not charge a card. If you voided that invoice, the card offers Create Invoice again. A quote gets one invoice this way: if two people click Create Invoice at the same moment, one draft is made and the other person reads "This quote already has an invoice".

The card does not appear for contract work types, for repair quotes raised from an Issue (schedule those from the Issue), or once the quote has a job. If you create the job after invoicing, the new job is linked to that invoice: the job shows the invoice, and completing the job does not draft or offer a second one. If the quote already has a job, invoice it from the job once the work is done. If that job is deleted later, the quote is back to having no job, so the card and both actions return.

When the quote updates an existing contract

A quote set to Replace the existing contract or Add these services to the existing contract updates that contract instead of creating a new one.

• Replace restates the contract's service scope and price from the quote. Its invoice schedule and service term change only where you changed them on the quote itself (Invoice Schedule → Customize for this quote). Anything the quote just inherited from the work type or the company default leaves the contract's own setting alone. First billing month and Bill for always stay as the contract has them, so months you cancelled before the first billing month stay cancelled. Invoice amount changes only with the schedule: a quote that keeps the contract's When to create invoices leaves its invoice amount as it is, even if the quote shows a different one. To change only the invoice amount, edit the contract.
• Add never changes the contract's dates, invoice schedule or service term.
• Either way, the quote's recurring prices (Per visit, Per month) are counted on the contract's own schedule — its visits, its term (a replace quote with its own agreement period uses that period) and its first billing month — the same way the customer's quote page showed them.
• A contract that is still active or paused is the one updated, even when next term's renewal already exists — unless the quote's agreement period starts on or after the renewal's start date. A quote dated to next term updates the renewal instead, and this term keeps its own dates and price.
• When a quote for this term updates a contract whose renewal already exists, the renewal still has the old services and prices. It shows Check this contract's billing (with a link to the previous term), and its automatic invoices wait until you update it to match or confirm it is right.
• If the contract has ended and was renewed, the latest active renewal is the one updated. It keeps its own start and end dates unless the quote's agreement period starts on or after the renewal's start date.
• If the contract has been cancelled, archived or completed and has no active renewal, OpsVara does not change it. It creates a new contract from the quote instead and flags that contract for a billing check, because the quote was written against the old one.

The tax rate the customer signed

The customer signs the quote's totals at the quote's own tax rate. When that rate is different from your company rate under SettingsQuote Templates on the day the quote is approved, the contract the quote creates keeps the quote's rate, and every invoice drafted for the contract charges it on its taxable lines. That covers monthly and scheduled invoices, invoices after a visit, Create Invoice, combining the contract's invoices, and an Ongoing contract's next term. With a company rate of 7%, a quote at 8.25% for a taxable $200-a-month service invoices $216.50 a month, and a tax-exempt customer quoted at 0% is invoiced without tax. A later change to the company rate does not move either contract.

A quote signed at the company rate leaves the contract with no rate of its own. The contract charges the company rate and follows it: if you change the company rate, or set it for the first time, invoices drafted after the change charge the new rate. Most contracts work this way, so a rate change does not have to be repeated on each one.

• A Replace quote at a rate other than the company rate sets the contract's tax rate to its own. A Replace quote at the company rate removes a rate an earlier quote left on the contract, so the contract follows the company rate again. A rate you set yourself under Invoice Options stays: a tax-exempt customer you set to 0% is still at 0% after a replace quote written at the company rate.
• An Add quote never changes it. If the add-on quote was signed at a different rate, the customer's activity gets a note saying so. Billing is not held.
• The contract page shows the rate under Invoice Options — Tax rate 8.25% — from quote QU-00019 for a contract with its own rate, or Tax rate 7% — your company rate (Settings → Quote Templates) for one that follows the company rate. Office roles can click Change to set a different rate, or Use company rate to go back to the company rate. A change applies to invoices drafted after it. Drafts already made keep their rate, so edit a draft to change its tax.
• Contracts created before October 2026, imported, or made by hand have no rate of their own either. They charge the company rate, as before, until you change it on the contract.
• A one-off invoice drafted from an approved quote — from its job, or with Create Invoice on the quote — also charges the quote's rate.
• Combining invoices keeps the tax rate they were drafted at when they all have the same one. Two invoices from a tax-exempt quote combine without tax, and drafts made before a rate change keep their old rate (the combined draft's internal note says the contract's rate has changed). If the invoices were drafted at different rates, the combined draft charges the contract's rate, or the company rate when they have no contract, and its internal note lists the rates. Check the tax before you send it.

When OpsVara asks you to check a contract's billing

When a quote is approved, OpsVara compares the total the customer signed (before tax, after any quote discount) with the total the contract was set up at — or, for a quote that adds to an existing contract, with how much the contract total went up. Lines that bill each time the work is done are left out of both. If the two differ by more than $1 or 0.5%, whichever is larger, the approval still goes through: the customer's signature is recorded and the contract exists. But the contract shows Check this contract's billing with both amounts, the quote shows the same notice, and the office gets a notification.

While the check is open:

• Scheduled invoices for the contract are not created automatically, and none of its drafts are sent automatically.
• Create Invoice on the contract still works, for anything that is due now.
• If an Ongoing contract renews before anyone checks, the new term copies the old term's totals and carries the same check, so its automatic billing waits too. Check and resume billing on each term.

Compare the contract's price and service scope with the signed quote and fix whatever is wrong. Then click Totals checked — resume billing on the contract (office roles). OpsVara records who clicked it and when, and the contract bills as normal from then on.

If a billing day passed while the check was open, OpsVara lists those invoices first — a month the contract bills for (for a contract that bills the month just finished, only months that have ended), or a scheduled date. On a new contract that was flagged when the quote was approved, the list also has the month that would have been drafted at approval (see Open the contract above), even when the contract started a few days before the approval. Create these invoices now is ticked: click Resume Billing and each one is created as a draft for you to review. Resuming billing does not send them. Untick it to resume billing without them and create them yourself later with Create Invoice. An invoice you voided during the check is not offered again.

The same check appears on a new contract created because the quote's target contract had ended (see above), and on a contract a replace or add-on quote updated with a line priced in a unit the contract's invoice schedule cannot bill — for example a Per month line on a contract that bills after each visit. Change the line's price unit or the contract's invoice schedule, then resume billing.

The customer already had a contract for this site

Approving a quote that is not set to add to or replace a contract always creates a new contract. When the customer already has an Active or Paused contract for the same work type, on one of the same sites, for a period that overlaps the new one, the approval still goes through and the customer is not stopped. The new contract shows Check this contract's billing and says the customer now has two agreements for this site, with Open the other contract. The office gets a notification. This is what happens when someone creates the contract by hand after a phone yes and the customer later approves the quote that was still open, or when an Ongoing plan renews while a renewal quote is out.

The check holds the new contract's automatic invoices only. It does not hold scheduling: visits may be scheduled on both contracts. Decide which one to keep and archive the other. If you keep the new one, click Totals checked — resume billing on it.

Two cases are not flagged. A quote for next season does not overlap this season's contract, so a renewal quote approved while this season's contract is still active creates next season's contract as usual. And when you chose Create A New, Separate Contract on the quote — the choice New Quote shows under This customer already has an active contract on this site — the second contract is what you asked for.

That choice covers the contracts the customer had when you last saved the quote. A contract created after that — one made by hand after a phone yes, or the next term of an Ongoing plan that renewed while the quote was out — was not on screen when you chose, so the new contract is flagged as above.

Contract statuses you may see later: Active, Paused, Cancelled, Expired, Completed, Archived. The contracts list hides Archived unless Status includes Archived. Cancelled stays on the default list. Contracts have no Void status — Void exists only on invoices and quotes (and on invoice plan slots).

When an approval does not finish

An approval saves the customer's acceptance first and then creates the contract (or adds to the one the quote names). If that second part fails, or the quote sits on Approving for more than ten minutes, the quote page shows This approval did not finish and the office gets a Quote Approval Did Not Finish notification when the failure was caught.

Click Finish Approval on the quote (office roles). It completes the approval from the acceptance that was saved — the signature, the options they picked and the time they signed — and it continues from anything the first attempt already created. It does not create a second contract, and a quote that adds services to a contract adds them once. The customer does not sign again. Until you finish it, their link and their portal show We have your approval.

If a contract already exists for the quote from an earlier attempt, the approval continues from that contract and does not change it. When the total the customer signed is different from that contract's total — they ticked other options this time, or the quote was edited in between — the contract shows Check this contract's billing with both figures, and its automatic invoices wait until you click Totals checked — resume billing.

The quote does not go back to Sent once a contract exists for it. While an approval is running (the last ten minutes), a second person approving the same quote sees This quote is already being processed. Please refresh and try again.

Verify it worked

The contract is Active, the billing day matches what you quoted, and the accepted line items are on the plan's scope.

What to do next

Send an invoice when a draft appears, or turn on Automatically Send Draft Invoices.