Record a response and convert a quotation

Record what a customer accepted, rejected or took in part, and convert the accepted lines into an invoice.

When the customer answers, you record what they agreed to and turn the accepted part into an invoice. BillFlow keeps the link between the two documents.

A partial acceptance in practice: only the reduced quantity — not the full quoted line — carries onto the new invoice.

Two ways to record an answer#

The quick way is Mark Accepted or Mark Rejected on the quotation's page: a plain status change that touches nothing else. The precise way is Record customer response, which records what the customer agreed to take line by line and is what makes a partial acceptance possible. Both appear on a quotation that has been sent. Until a response is recorded, the Customer response card says so plainly: No response recorded yet. Converting now bills the whole quotation.

A quotation's page with the Customer response card outlined, showing its Record button and the message that no response has been recorded yet — Record is where the precise, line-by-line answer is kept — Mark Accepted and Mark Rejected on the page above it are the quick, whole-document alternative.

Record the customer's response#

Press Record on the Customer response card — it reads Update once a decision already exists.
The dialog opens titled Record customer response: Set what the customer agreed to take. Zero declines a line. The quotation itself is not changed.
Use Accept all or Decline all to fill every line at once, or type a quantity against each line.
Press Save Response.

The Record customer response dialog open, listing each quotation line with its quoted quantity and an editable box for the accepted quantity, beside Accept all, Decline all and Save Response buttons — Every line defaults to its full quoted quantity — you only need to touch the ones the customer changed.

A zero declines that line. You cannot accept more than the quantity quoted, and you cannot reduce a line's accepted quantity below what has already been invoiced against it — BillFlow refuses with messages shaped like Cannot accept more than the 10 quoted. and 4 has already been invoiced and cannot be un-accepted. There is no free-text reason field: the record is quantities only.

What the status becomes#

The status is derived from the decision, never chosen directly. Every line accepted in full becomes Accepted. Nothing accepted at all becomes Rejected. Some accepted and still waiting for an invoice becomes Partially Accepted.

Partially Accepted is a whole-document summary, not a label on any one line. A line itself is either undecided, accepted in full, accepted in part, or declined. What carries forward to an invoice is each line's accepted quantity minus whatever has already been invoiced against it.

Convert to an invoice#

Open the quotation and press the convert button. Before any decision is recorded it reads Convert to Invoice; once a decision exists it reads Invoice Accepted Items (N), where N counts the lines still waiting to be invoiced.
BillFlow creates the new invoice and opens it.

The new invoice inherits the customer, the currency, the purchase-order reference, the subject and the accepted lines. Everything else is new: it arrives as a draft with no number, dated today, with a due date worked out from the customer's payment terms, and it takes its own number only when you issue it. The acceptance record stays with the quotation — the invoice itself starts clean.

Follow the trail between documents#

On the new invoice's page, the Related documents card shows Created from with the quotation's number. On the quotation's own page, the same card shows Converted to with the invoice. The quotation's number is also carried onto the invoice as its reference.

A quotation's page with status Converted, its Related documents card showing Converted to with a link to the resulting draft invoice — The link runs both ways: the invoice points back with Created from, shown here from the quotation's side.

Invoice the rest later#

After a partial conversion, the quotation stays Partially Accepted for as long as any accepted line is still waiting to be invoiced, and the convert button reappears with a smaller count. Once the last accepted line has been invoiced, the quotation becomes Converted, which is final.

Which moves have a button#

The quotation's state machine allows more moves than the product offers controls for. The buttons that exist are Issue Quotation (draft only), Mark Sent (issued only), Mark Accepted and Mark Rejected (sent or viewed only), and Cancel (draft or issued) — plus Record customer response and the convert button described above. There is no control anywhere in BillFlow that sets a quotation to Viewed or Expired today, even though the state machine allows both.

Quotation statuses and the moves allowed from each
From	Can move to
Draft	IssuedCancelled
Issued	SentViewedExpiredCancelled
Sent	ViewedAcceptedRejectedExpired
Viewed	AcceptedRejectedExpired
Accepted	Converted
Partially Accepted	Converted
Rejected	Final
Expired	Sent
Converted	Final
Cancelled	Final

The table shows every move the state machine allows, whether or not a button reaches it today.

Doing this for several quotations#

The Documents list's Change status bulk action can Mark Sent, Mark Accepted or Mark Rejected across a selection, skipping any document the move isn't legal for. There is no bulk convert and no bulk response: recording a customer's answer and converting a quotation are both one document at a time.

Last reviewed 6 September 2026