Once your estimate and payment milestones are built, you’re three clicks from a signed contract: preview the proposal, give it a final check, and send it. This article walks through that flow — and just as importantly, what happens after your client signs, which is where most of the “wait, where did it go?” questions come from.
A quick note on wording: here, “proposal” means the quote and contract your client reviews and signs. If you’re on the Pro plan or above, there’s also a separate, non-binding initial proposal you can send for a soft thumbs-up before the signable contract — that’s covered in Sending an Initial Proposal Before the Final Contract.
Where the Buttons Live
Open your opportunity and look in the top right corner of the screen. You’ll see two buttons:
Preview — see the proposal exactly as your client will.
Finalize Quote — run a final check and send.
They’re available from every tab — Scope, Subcontracts, Finance, anywhere — so you don’t have to navigate back to the Scope tab to send. (If you remember these buttons living at the bottom of the Scope tab, that’s the old layout — they’ve moved up top.)
Preview As Your Client
Click Preview to open the client portal view — the same screen your client will land on. You’ll see the proposal with your logo, the project scope, pricing, and the contact details for both sides, laid out in a clean, professional format.
While you’re in the preview, you can also customize the Client Portal Brand Colors — pick a color pair that matches your brand, and it’s applied to the portal every client of yours sees. Save your changes and every future quote carries your colors.
Use this view to double-check that everything looks polished and client-ready before you send.
Finalize Quote: The Pre-Send Check
When you click Finalize Quote, Eano reviews your proposal before letting it out the door. If the button shows a small numbered badge, that’s how many items need your attention — hover over it to see the list. Issues come in three flavors:
Blockers stop the send entirely — for example, a completely empty scope. These must be fixed first.
Critical warnings flag things that make a proposal look incomplete — scope items missing prices, incomplete client information, or a missing project address. You can technically send past these, but you probably shouldn’t.
Suggestions are polish — like filling out your business information.
Every item in the list is clickable, and clicking takes you straight to the spot that needs fixing — no hunting through tabs. Once the list is clear, the popover tells you your quote looks ready and offers a Preview and Send Quote button.
Prefer to Send It Yourself?
The Finalize Quote popover also has a Send Manually section, available whether or not you send through Eano:
Download PDF — export the proposal as a PDF to attach to your own email. The little gear tucked against its right edge opens Configure PDF, where you can add a cover page and a page introducing your company. See Adding a Cover Page and an About Page to Your Proposal PDF.
Copy Link — generate a secure sharing link your client can open without logging in. Paste it into a text or email and they’ll see the same proposal.
Those cover and About pages shape the PDF you download or share — they aren’t part of the document your client signs, which stays plain on purpose.
The Final Review Page
Clicking Preview and Send Quote opens the full contract layout for one last look. This page has a lot of quiet power, so here’s a tour:
Everything in one place — your logo and company info, an optional project description, the complete scope of work, payment milestones, and any attachments (PDFs or images).
Display Options — toggles that control what your client sees: cost type, quantities, units, item pricing, and itemized descriptions per scope group. Turning something off only changes the client’s view — your internal data stays intact. There’s a Preview as Client button right there to confirm the result.
Prepared By — click the name under your company to choose which team member the proposal is prepared by. (Make sure your team’s seats and roles are set up for this.)
Signing order — the “Signs First” and “Signs Second” labels above the two parties show who signs before whom. Click the arrows to swap the order.
Add Additional Signers — for client partners, spouses, or company reps who also need to sign.
Edit Contract — expand the contract details and click Edit Contract to customize the agreement text. You can paste in your own contract language, then Save it for this quote or Save As Default for all future projects.
Send Proposal (Pro and above) — alongside the send button, you’ll see a Send Proposal button. Instead of sending a signable contract, this sends a non-binding proposal your client reviews and approves with a click — no signature — and you can optionally hide pricing first. It’s a great way to get a soft yes before locking in the contract. Full details in Sending an Initial Proposal Before the Final Contract.
When everything looks right, click the blue send button. Its exact label depends on the signing order you chose — if your client signs first, it reads Send Final Quote to Client; if you sign first, you’ll Sign & Send to Client in one step. (If you’ve set your side to sign first but someone else on your team is the signer, it reads Send Final Quote to Signer Email instead, so it lands with them first.)
Adding Notes, Photos, and Files to the Quote
Your client sees more than line items. Three spots let you put extra context in front of them, all of it client-facing:
Project Description — the box at the top of the final review page, above the scope. This is your notes section: assumptions, exclusions, “price good for 30 days,” whatever you’d normally write at the top of a paper estimate. It holds up to 2,000 characters and saves as soon as you click away. Your client sees it as a paragraph above the scope, and it prints on the PDF too. It’s a single paragraph — pressing Enter saves rather than starting a new line.
Attachments — the section just above Contract on the same page. Drop in PDFs, Word documents, or images (PNG or JPG). Attached files show up in an Attachments section of the quote your client reviews, and they travel with the contract into the e-signature package, so they’re part of what gets signed. It’s the right home for an addendum, a spec sheet, a rendering, or a photo you want sitting with the quote.
Photos on the scope itself — on the Scope tab, a subproject’s header row carries + Add Photos, and any line item with a Materials or Labor and Materials cost type has a Photos field in its drawer. Both show up right alongside that part of the scope on your client’s quote.
One thing to avoid: adding a scope line with no price just to hold a note. Your client will see it as a line item priced at $0.00, which reads like free work rather than a note. Put notes in Project Description instead.
What Your Client Receives
Your client gets an email and an SMS with a link to their Eano client dashboard — nothing to download, no account hoops. From there they can review the scope, pricing, and payment terms, and when they’re ready, click Sign Now to e-sign online. You can control how these notifications behave under Settings > Notifications.
If you sent an initial proposal first, your client's experience is a little different: instead of a signing step, they get an Approve Initial Proposal button. Once they approve, their part is done — there's deliberately no next page for them, because the next move is yours. They'll only get a signing step once you send the final quote. If a client tells you they approved but "nothing happened," that's the two-step flow working as intended. Sending an Initial Proposal Before the Final Contract walks through what they see at each step.
After Everyone Signs
This is the part that surprises people, so here’s exactly what happens once both parties have signed:
The signed contract is saved automatically. A PDF of the fully executed contract lands in the project’s All Files section. To print it or send a copy to anyone, open it from there and download or print.
The opportunity becomes a project. It moves out of your Opportunities list and into Projects — so if a proposal “disappears” from Opportunities right after signing, that’s where it went.
The scope locks. The “add item” fields and price editing go away, because the signed contract is now the agreement of record. Any changes from here — adding work, removing an item the client changed their mind about, adjusting price — go through a Change Order, which keeps a clean paper trail both sides have approved.
A Start Project button appears. Click it when you’re ready to kick off the work — it locks in the scope and milestones and opens up the project-phase tools: scheduling, tasks, daily logs, team assignments, chat, and finances.
Editing or Resending a Quote
Need to make changes after sending but before your client signs? No problem — go back to the Scope tab, edit the line items or prices, and send the updated quote again so your client sees the latest version.
There’s no separate Resend button. To send again — whether you changed something or your client just can’t find the email — click Finalize Quote in the top right, then click the same send button as before (Send Final Quote to Client or Sign & Send to Client). Your client gets a fresh email and text with a new link.
If someone has already signed — say you signed first, or one of several client signers has — Eano stops you with Sending New Quote Will Invalidate Signatures. Confirming voids the current signing document and everyone signs the new version from scratch.
After signing, edits to the scope aren’t possible — use a change order instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find my estimate (the quote) on the web? Open the opportunity or project from your Opportunities or Projects list. The estimate itself — the scope and pricing — lives on the Scope tab. To view it the way your client sees it, or to send it again, click Preview or Finalize Quote at the top-right; those buttons are on every tab, so you don’t have to be on the Scope tab to use them. If the quote’s already been sent and signed, the executed contract PDF is saved in the project’s All Files section.
My proposal isn’t showing in Opportunities anymore. Where did it go? If it was signed, it’s now a project — check the Projects section. The opportunity converts automatically once both parties sign.
Where do I find the signed contract to print it? In the project’s All Files section. Once both parties sign, the executed contract is saved there automatically as a PDF — open it, then download or print.
I created my project directly without an opportunity. Where’s my contract? There isn’t one in Eano — contracts only exist for quotes that were sent and signed through an opportunity. Going straight to a project means you and your client made your agreement outside Eano, so there’s nothing for Eano to print. You can still invoice the client normally from the project’s Finance tab.
Can I attach a photo or a file to the quote? Yes. Open Finalize Quote → Preview and Send Quote and scroll to Attachments, just above the Contract section. PDFs, Word documents, and PNG or JPG images all work, and your client sees them with the quote and in the signing package. For photos tied to a specific part of the job, use + Add Photos on the subproject in the Scope tab instead.
How do I add a notes section to my estimate? Use Project Description at the top of the final review page. It’s client-facing, holds up to 2,000 characters, and prints on the PDF. Avoid adding a blank-priced scope line as a note — your client will see it priced at $0.00.
How do I resend a contract to my client? Click Finalize Quote, then the send button again. There’s no separate Resend button — sending again is the resend.
Can I send the proposal without going through Eano? Yes — use Download PDF or Copy Link in the Finalize Quote popover. The link opens for your client without a login.
My client says the signature link failed. First check whether the proposal was archived — an archived proposal can’t be signed, and the client will see a message saying so. If it was, send a fresh proposal. If the proposal is active and the link still fails, reach out to us and we’ll dig in.
Why can’t I edit the scope anymore? The contract’s been signed. From that point on, changes go through change orders so both sides approve every adjustment — that’s what protects you if questions come up later.