How ZoloBid works

Click New lead on Home, Projects or Contacts. Enter the customer, the address and a job name. That creates the contact and the project together.

Settings, Setup. A checklist of the steps to get quoting: your business details, branding, trades, pricing, quote defaults, payments, email and team. Each step opens the real settings screen. Skip any step and come back later.

Every project sits in a stage: New lead, Appointment, Quote sent, Sold, In progress, Complete or Lost. Change the stage as the job moves. Sending a quote and getting it signed move it for you.

Yes. Settings, Import customers. Export a CSV from Jobber, JobNimbus or a spreadsheet, match the columns, check, then import. People already in ZoloBid are skipped.

Use Search at the top. It looks through customers, projects, quotes and what is on them, invoices, jobs, tasks and photo captions. Type a name, the last 4 digits of a phone, an address, a quote or invoice number, or a dollar amount like $4,500.

Yes, for yourself. Settings, Layout. Reorder tabs, hide the ones you never use, pick the screen ZoloBid opens on, and choose left or right hand so search and buttons sit where your thumb is. Settings can never be hidden.

Each trade has questions (like roof size or fence length) and pricing rules that turn the answers into lines. Start from a ready made trade in Settings, Trades and pricing, then check and confirm each rule with your own numbers. Nothing quotes until every rule is confirmed.

Roof replacement, roof repair, fencing, landscaping, junk removal, moving, pressure washing, painting, plumbing, handyman, gutters, lawn care, concrete and tree service. Every number in them is a round placeholder for you to replace.

A quick low to high range for a trade, for the first phone call. It says it is a ballpark, not a quote. Save it on a project as an estimate, then build the real quote later.

Open the project, start a quote, add your lines, then Send. The customer gets a private link where they can pick options and sign. No login needed on their side.

Pages the customer sees before the price: a cover, about us, photos, your terms, a video. Save sets of pages as templates in Settings, Quote pages, and mark one to start every new quote with.

Lines the customer can pick or skip on their quote. The total updates as they choose, and what they picked is what they sign.

Yes. Make a new version. The customer only ever sees and signs the latest one, and anything already signed never changes.

Extra work after a quote is signed. Open the signed quote and press New change order. It is signed on its own and billed on its own, on the same project.

Set a deposit on the quote. When the customer signs, ZoloBid makes the deposit invoice right away and keeps the balance as a draft until you send it.

Add your financing offers in Settings, Financing. Customers see the monthly payment and your apply link on the quote. ZoloBid does not lend money.

Connect your Stripe account in Settings, Payments. Customers then pay invoices online by card or bank. Cash and checks you record by hand on the invoice.

Their own project page: the quote they signed, invoices and what is paid, photos you share, your review links and a referral box. No login.

Connect your Gmail or Outlook in Settings, Customer email. Quotes, invoices and follow ups then go out from your own address and land in your Sent folder. ZoloBid can only send, it cannot read your inbox.

Yes, with the own domain add on. Settings, Send from your own domain. Add the DNS records it shows where you bought your domain, then press Check now. Until it checks out, emails go out the way they do now.

Ready made quote follow ups and payment reminders are on by default. Change the days and the wording, or turn them off, in Settings, Follow ups and reminders. They stop on their own when a quote is signed or an invoice is paid.

Only during sending hours where the customer lives, with limits per customer per day and week. Set these in Settings, Customer messages. A message you send yourself goes right away.

Settings, Customer messages. Every email and text is in the log with Delivered, Bounced or Not delivered and the reason. Filter by Bounced or not delivered.

With the texting add on, text a customer from the project page and send On my way texts from a job. The first text to a number says how to stop texts. A customer who replies STOP gets no more texts until they reply START.

Open the project, add a job with the date, time and crew. It shows on the Schedule. Crew see only the jobs they are on.

Clock in and out from Time or from a job. Managers see timesheets and can fix times. Download timesheets as a spreadsheet.

On a job, press On my way. The customer gets a text or email with the crew member first name, the company phone (or their own if they chose it) and a link that shows they are coming.

Only with the crew location add on, only after the owner turns it on, and only after each person reads what is collected and agrees. Locations are taken about every 2 minutes while clocked in, never off the clock, and kept 30 days. Customers never see a map.

Yes. Screens you opened with signal still open. Clock in and out, job status, tasks, photos and new leads are saved on the phone and upload by themselves when there is service, with the real time you pressed the button. Anything that could not be saved shows on the Saved on this phone page with the reason.

Add photos on a project or job from the phone camera. They are shrunk to save data and stay with the project.

Add your review links (Google, Facebook, Nextdoor) in Settings, Reviews. Ask from a project, or turn on asking automatically when a job is done. With the star check on, 4 or 5 stars go to your review sites and 1 to 3 stars come to you privately.

The ZoloBid referral and affiliate program. Share your link; when a business you sent signs up and pays, you earn a share of their ZoloBid plan for 12 months. See Settings, Refer a business.

Settings, Team. Pick what each person can do and see before you invite them. You can change it any time. Crew and office helpers who do not quote are free.

5 seats that can quote or manage are included, and your own counts as one. More are $10 a seat, or less in bundles of 5, 10, 15 or 20.

Every on and off switch has a ? next to it. Tap it to see what the switch does in plain words.

Yes. Settings, Your data. Everything as a zip, or one kind at a time as a spreadsheet file.

Your account goes read only: you can see and download everything but not add or send. After 6 months it is deleted, with reminders first. You can also delete everything now.

Settings, Your login. We send a link to the new address to confirm it.

Settings, Partners and integrations shows what is connected (Stripe, your email, texting, your domain) and what is coming.

Home, Door knock log. Type the address, add a note if you want, and press what happened: No answer, Not interested, Come back later or Wants a quote. Type an address you already knocked and it tells you when and what happened. For now only someone who manages the team can add to it.

Yes. A new company sees a Sample jobs card on Home. Add sample jobs puts three made up jobs in your pipeline. They have no phone or email, so nothing is ever sent. Remove the sample jobs takes them out and they sit in Trash for 30 days.

Yes. Settings, Integrations and partners: each lead link has a Booking page with Copy link. The customer picks a day in the next two weeks and morning, afternoon or evening, and leaves their details. It comes in as a new lead with a task that says what they asked for. Nothing goes on your calendar until you confirm it, so nobody gets double booked.

Settings, Integrations and partners. Under the Booking page, type their name and press Copy their link. Leads from that link say who sent them.

The booking page and the Ballpark price widget have an Español button and open in Spanish on a phone set to Spanish. Your own price questions stay as you wrote them. The lead still reaches you in English.

Reports, Storm list. Type the zip codes that got hit and you get every contact you have there, past customers first, with tap to call and a download. People marked do not contact are left out.

Reports, Seasonal offer to past customers. Pick a ready note, press Find them, then open a ready email from your own mail app with everyone on the BCC line, 40 at a time. ZoloBid does not send it. The note includes a line telling people how to opt out.

Customers who signed with you about a year ago, with tap to call. A quick check in is an easy way to get a review, a referral or the next job. Nothing is sent by itself.

Reports, Who sends you work. It counts the jobs each person referred, how many signed and what they paid.

Reports, Best time to call. It reads your Contact log and shows which hours people pick up. It needs about 20 logged calls before it names an hour.

On a draft quote, under Terms, Promos. Someone who manages the team adds a code such as SPRING10 once. After that anyone building a quote taps it to fill in the discount, then presses Save terms.

Yes. When a job has two or more quotes, the job page shows Quotes side by side with the totals, the difference and the status of each.

On a job page, signed customers in the same zip code. Handy for telling a new customer you did a job two streets over. Ask before you give out a name.

After a quote goes out, your customer gets six short notes over about six weeks. Day 3 explains what the price pays for. Day 7 says what waiting can cost, only where that is true. Day 14 shows how to compare quotes fairly. Day 21 says a no is okay and asks them to just tell you. Day 30 steps back. Day 45 closes it out. It stops by itself when they sign, or when you move the job to Lost. Your customer can also stop it with one tap: the quote page has Not right now and No thanks buttons at the bottom (database change 0069). You get a task when they do. A plain email reply does not stop it by itself, so when a customer writes back no, move the job to Lost the same day. That keeps the promise the note makes. There are no fake deadlines and no made up discounts. You can change every message under Settings, Follow ups. If you already wrote your own, yours are kept. This wording arrives with database change 0068.

Yes. Settings, Follow ups, Use the notes written for your trade. Pick your trade and press Fill the boxes. It loads six notes written for that kind of work, for example what a roof price pays for and what a slow leak costs. Read them, change anything you like, then press Save. Nothing changes for customers until you save. One set covers the whole company for now, so if you work in several trades pick Any trade.

Reports, Quote follow ups. Only people who manage the team see it. It shows how many sent quotes signed, said no, asked for later, went quiet or are still open, the days to a yes, and after which follow up customers signed. It does not count email opens, because mail apps often mark a message opened when nobody read it. Under 20 quotes it says not enough yet.

Yes, once someone who manages the team turns it on at Quote with no signal (the link is on Home after that). Open that page once while you have service so the phone keeps it. Then write the customer and the lines anywhere. It stays on that phone only. When you have signal, press Make the real quote. It makes the customer, the job and a draft quote, and sends nothing. If the signal drops halfway, press the button again and it carries on without making a second customer.

Job page, Job documents, Work order. Fill in who it is for, the start date and any notes, then press Make a link. Copy the link and text it. They open it on a phone with no login and see the items, the address and your notes. It never shows a price. If the job changes, press Update it with this page. Turn it off when the work is done. Anyone with the link can read it, so send it only to the person doing the work.

Yes. Open Ballpark, get a price, then press Set up area pricing by zip code. Give each area a name, its zip codes and a percent up or down. After that, type the job zip on any ballpark and you see the range for that area. Copy as text uses the area range. A saved estimate keeps the normal range, and the price widget on your website does not use areas yet.

Not until you send it again. The quote page shows a yellow note with the price that went out and the price now. Your customer keeps seeing the one you sent until you press send on the new version.

Job page, Job costing. Add each cost with what it was and the amount. You see what the job signed for, the costs so far, what is left over and the margin. Only people who can see prices see this card. Your customer never does.

One number for the whole company, set from Job costing by someone who manages the team. A job under it turns red, and a quote under it shows a warning before you send.

Yes. In Job costing, Add a supplier price sheet. Paste one item per line with the cost each, straight from a spreadsheet. After that you pick an item and how many, and the cost is worked out for you.

Job costing, Snap a receipt. The photo is saved with the job photos, then you type the amount.

Yes. Job page, Invoices, Bill in stages. Tap 10, 25, 30 or 50 percent, or The rest. It fills in the amount and what it is for. Check it, then add the invoice.

It works them out and you decide. Reports, Late fees: set a percent and days of grace, and every late invoice is listed with the fee. Put your late fee in your quote terms first, and check your state cap. To charge it, add an invoice on the job.

Job page, Job documents, Work order. It lists the items and quantities from the quote with no prices, plus your notes and the start date. Print it or save it as a PDF.

On the quote, Order email. It opens an email in your own mail app with the items and quantities and no prices. Type your supplier address once and it is remembered.

Yes, and it is off until you turn it on. Settings, Team, A second OK on big quotes. Set the amount. Over that, only someone who manages the team can send until they open the quote and press Approve this version.

Tags are short labels on a job, such as Insurance or Rush. Locations are for a company with more than one branch. Both are picked on the job page, and Reports counts jobs by tag and by location.

Schedule: drag the job to the new day, or tap Move on a phone. It asks first, and it keeps the time of day, the length and the crew.

Automations, Recipes. Ready made sets of tasks, such as Never drop a lead or Get paid faster. One tap adds them to your own tasks, where you can change or remove each one. Recipes only make tasks for your team. They never message a customer.

Yes. Their project page has Send us a photo. It lands in the job photos marked From the customer and makes a task so someone looks at it. Up to 10 a day per job.

Settings, Team. Start from a common list, change the steps to fit your company, then add each new person and tick the steps off.