Send your first proposal

How proposals work

A proposal is tied to an event and a client. You build it from your menu, add any fees and tax, then send it. Once sent, the proposal locks so the numbers the client reviews can't change underneath them. The lifecycle is Draft → Sent → Accepted (or Declined).

Build the proposal

1. Open Proposals and create a new proposal for the event.
2. Add line items sourced from your menu. Each line carries its description and unit price; set the quantity for the event.
3. Add any fees (for example, a service charge or delivery fee).
4. Set the tax rate and an optional discount (a percentage or a fixed amount).
5. Catertoo recalculates the subtotal, discount, fees, tax, and grand total as you go.
6. Add notes for the client if you'd like, and optionally a valid-until date.

Send it

When the proposal is ready, click its Draft status badge and choose Send proposal, or click Send proposal at the bottom of the document editor. A dialog opens so you can email the proposal to your client in the same step:

1. To: pick one of the client's contacts that has an email address. The primary contact is chosen for you.
2. Template: the Send proposal template is chosen for you. Pick another proposal or general message template to start from different wording. To change the wording every proposal email starts from, edit the Send proposal template under Settings, Message templates.
3. Subject and Message: already filled in with your client's name, the event and its date, so you edit real sentences. Change anything you like.
4. Click Send.

The email comes from your business name, and your client's replies go to you. It has a View proposal button that opens the page where your client reviews, accepts, or declines the proposal, and a PDF copy of the proposal is attached. The email is saved in the proposal's Conversation section, where your client's replies show up too.

If you change the contact or template after editing the message, Catertoo keeps your edits and offers to refill the message for the new choice, so it never greets the wrong person by accident. If you have not edited it, Catertoo refills it for you; if that refill fails, Send stays unavailable until you click Refill the message.

To mark the proposal as sent without emailing it (for example, you are handing it over in person), untick Email it to the client and click Mark as sent. If none of the client's contacts has an email address, the dialog says so and offers only Mark as sent; add an email address to a contact on the client's page first if you want to email it.

Sending moves the proposal from Draft to Sent and locks the line items, fees, and totals against further edits.

A sent proposal is locked. To change pricing after sending, you'll need a proposal that is still in Draft. Locked proposals protect the figures your client is reviewing. Archiving a sent proposal withdraws it from the client (they see it as no longer available) until you restore it.

Email it again

To email a sent proposal again, or to another contact on the same client (for example, their accounts team), click Resend email on the proposal. The dialog's button reads Send email. Resending never changes the proposal's status.

If an email cannot be delivered, the message at the top of the page says so and the proposal stays sent. Use Resend email to try again.

Acceptance

From the proposal you can record the client's decision:

• Accept: the proposal moves to Accepted, and you can turn it into an invoice. If the event already had an accepted proposal (another version), that one is archived automatically, so the newly accepted proposal is the booking. An archived version like that can no longer be invoiced.
• Decline: the proposal moves to Declined.

If your client opens an older proposal's email after accepting a newer version, the older proposal's page tells them it was replaced and does not let them accept it, so the booking never flips back to the older version. The link of an earlier accepted version says it was replaced too, and still lists the event's invoices to pay. You can still accept the older one yourself from the proposal if that is what you want. If you do, the newer proposal's link says it was replaced.

You can also download a branded PDF of the proposal to share.

What's next?

• Invoice and get paid once the proposal is accepted.