Materials and quotes

In the project menu you'll find Materials & quotes. The page has two tabs: Materials is what you got from the client, Quotes is what comes out of it.

The process is always the same:

You upload the materials.
AI prepares a quote from them.
You adjust the quote, price it and send it to the client. The client approves it right in frego, or you record their approval yourself. One click then turns the approved quote into the project structure.

Materials

Documents – texts such as the brief, meeting notes or agreements with the client.
Files – PDFs, images, Word, Excel and other attachments. You'll also see them in the project cloud, in the Specifications folder.
Links – links to the design, a test site, a repository and the like. For each one you can write a Note for AI, for example what it should pay attention to on the page. A project can have at most 200 links.
Mind maps – for when you need to sketch the project out.

Materials are added by the project's admins and coworkers. A client doesn't add them here, they send you files through the project cloud.

A document opens in a window of its own over the page, and you can have several open next to each other. Drag a window by its top bar to move it, drag an edge or a corner to resize it, and close it with Close or the X. If it has unsaved changes, frego asks before closing. The windows stay open in the Quotes tab too, so you can read the brief while you edit a quote. On a phone or a narrow screen a document opens in the page itself, one at a time.

Files in materials are private. A link to a file is temporary and works for about an hour, so if you copy it somewhere else, it stops working. Reload the page to get a fresh one.

Who can see a material

For each material, you set one of three levels in the Who can see it section:

Private – only you can see it, not even a project admin.
Team – the project's admins and coworkers can see it. This is the default for a new material.
Team and client – the project's admins, coworkers and clients can see it.

The level can be changed by whoever added the material, or by a project admin. A client sees only materials with the Team and client level and can't edit them. The cloud behaves the same way: in the Specifications folder, everyone sees only the files they can see in the materials. In the list of materials, only a material that is not at the Team level carries a mark.

If you leave a project or get removed from it, your private materials and the quotes you haven't shared with anybody stay stored, but nobody sees them, not even an admin. If you're added back to the project, you have them again. Quotes aren't shared by levels but with particular people. More in the section Sharing a quote below.

New quote

In the Materials tab, click Create a quote from the materials, or in the Quotes tab click New quote. The wizard is one screen:

How should AI price the work? – you pick one of the instructions in the project or No instruction – AI uses general rules. With Manage instructions you write an instruction, edit it or start one from a template, and then pick it here.
What should AI work from? – you tick the materials. Everything AI can read is preselected.
Note for this quote only – you can add a one-off note, for example “the client's budget is up to €5,000, MVP first”. Then you click Generate quote. Next to the button you see how many credits it costs and how many you have left. The quote is named after the project and you rename it once you open it.

The quote is generated in the background, so you can do something else in the meantime. While it's being generated, you'll see Generating the quote… in the top bar, wherever you are in frego. When it's done, the top bar tells you and a click takes you straight to it. If generating takes unusually long, the top bar says so and you can hide it there. If it hasn't finished even after half an hour, you'll see The quote did not finish and a click takes you to the project's quotes. You'll also find it in the Quotes tab. Nothing is created in the project until you create the structure from an approved quote yourself.

Quotes can be created by the project's admins and coworkers. Generating one costs 10 AI credits, spent by whoever runs it. If the quote fails, you get the credits back and you'll find Try again on the quote. The wizard opens with the materials from the original attempt, so check the selection before you send it. A quote that's still being generated can't be deleted. You can delete it once it finishes or fails. Before deleting, frego asks you to confirm.

What AI reads from the materials

Documents – the whole text.
PDFs and images (PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF) – directly, including images on PDF pages.
Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), CSV and text files (.txt, .md) – their text.
Mind maps – as an outline.
Links – the title, the address and your note, always. The page text only when it could be loaded.

Other file types, for example ZIP, video or the older .doc and .xls, can't be read by AI. You'll see them in the wizard, but they can't be selected. AI can't read a password-protected PDF either, and you'll see it in the quote as not used. An empty document or an empty map isn't used.

For links, frego shows what it managed to load:

content loaded – AI gets the text of the page,
content loaded, truncated – the page was too long and AI gets its beginning,
content could not be read – the page is behind a login, for example (Figma, Google Drive), or has no readable text. AI uses only the title and the note,
page unreachable – it couldn't be opened. AI uses only the title and the note,
loading content… – frego is reading the page right now,
content not loaded yet – you added the link in an older version of frego that didn't read link content. AI uses only the title and the note until you load it again.

frego reads only public web pages. It can't read anything behind a login or on an internal network, so for a link like that, write what's on it in the Note for AI. You reload a link's content with the Load again button.

Limits for one quote:

files up to 18 MB in total, a single image at most 7.5 MB,
PDFs up to 600 pages in total,
from Excel, the first 5,000 rows of each sheet are read,
very long texts reach AI truncated.

When the selected files exceed a limit, the wizard tells you and you deselect some of them.

AI instructions and templates

An instruction tells AI how to do the pricing: how to split the work into sections and packages, how to estimate hours, what always belongs in the price and what doesn't. You'll find them in the Quotes tab under the AI instructions button, or in the wizard under Manage instructions. You create a new instruction with the New instruction button: you choose Blank instruction or one of the templates. From the ⋯ menu next to an instruction you rename it, save it as a template or delete it.

Ready-made templates – Web application, Online store, Mobile app, Design / branding, Marketing and content, General. A template is copied into an instruction in the project, where you can adjust it.
My templates – you save your own instruction with ⋯ and Save as template and use it in other projects too. You can have at most 50 of them. You rename and delete them in the My templates row under the instructions.

Only you can see your instructions and your own templates. One quote always uses exactly one instruction.

The rules for software projects, for example estimating for an experienced developer and tasks of at most 4 hours, are in the Web application, Online store and Mobile app templates. Without an instruction, AI uses general rules.

Editing a quote

You open a finished quote by clicking it. You can add, rename or delete sections, packages and tasks and adjust the hours. Packages and tasks can have a Description and the whole quote has a Summary for the client. Both are printed in the PDF, so write them for the client, not for yourself. In the Created from section you see which materials the quote was made from, what was truncated and what wasn't used. Only the person who created the quote sees this section.

AI also adds What the quote is based on (assumptions, the client sees them too) and Open questions (the client sees them only if you turn on List the open questions). You can edit both lists.

Changes aren't saved automatically. Click Save. If you try to leave without saving, frego asks you first. The PDF and sending work with the saved version, so save first. The head of a quote has one main button that depends on its status, for example Send by e-mail on a draft. The other actions are in the ⋯ menu next to it: Download PDF, New version, Rework with AI, Mark as sent, Send again and Delete. Under the items there are collapsed rows: Decision record, Changes since v1, What the client will see and Sending history. Each one says what is in it, and a click opens it.

Price

The line above the items says what the quote is priced with: the rate, the reserve, the discount, VAT, the supplier and the customer. Edit settings opens a side panel with the parts Price, Offer and PDF and Notes. There you set:

Hourly rate – the price of an item is hours × rate. If you have your hourly rate set in the project, a new quote already has it filled in. Without a rate the quote has hours only.
Reserve (%) – it's spread into the prices of the items calculated from hours. You see it in the summary as a separate line, the client doesn't.
Discount – as a percentage or as an amount. The client sees it as a separate line.
Supplier and Customer – your billing profile and the billing profile of the project's client. The currency and VAT come from the supplier, just like on an invoice. If the supplier isn't a VAT payer, the quote says so and no VAT is calculated. Both are chosen by the quote's author.
Quote number and Valid until – printed in the header of the PDF.

Right on the items you set:

Fixed price – you enter the price of a task or of a whole package by hand. It's the final price for the client: it replaces hours × rate and the reserve isn't added to it. In a package with a fixed price, the tasks no longer have their own price.
Optional – you mark an item as optional. The client sees it separately in the quote and it doesn't count towards the total price until they accept it.

In the Summary you see the hours, hours × rate, the reserve, the discount, VAT and the total price. It's recalculated as you type.

What the client will see

For each quote you choose the Level of detail in the PDF: By sections, By packages or By tasks, and whether to Show hours. The default is packages with prices and without hours. The client doesn't see anything below the chosen level. Prices are rounded line by line, so the numbers in the quote always add up to the total.

The client never sees the hourly rate, the reserve or the Internal note. The Note for the client, on the other hand, is printed in the PDF. You can check the exact result in the What the client will see section or download the PDF. You pick the Language of the PDF and e-mail from ten languages.

A quote without a rate shows hours instead of prices in the PDF.

Sending the quote

Send by e-mail – frego sends an e-mail with the PDF attached. The addresses of the project's clients are filled in, and you can edit the subject and the text. The client's reply goes to your e-mail. You can enter up to 5 addresses at once, and with Send a copy to me too you get the e-mail as well.
Mark as sent – when you send the PDF yourself.
Also give the client access in the app – in the send window you tick the project's clients who should see the quote in frego too. They can then approve or reject it there themselves. Whoever already has access is ticked in advance.

You can send at most 10 quotes per hour and 30 per day.

A sent quote is locked, so you can be sure you're looking at the same thing as the client. In the Sending history you find who the quote went to and when, and with Download the sent PDF you get exactly the PDF the client received. With Send again you send the same version to more people. A sent quote can't be returned to a draft any more. If you want to change something, click New version, edit the copy and send it. Until then the client has the previous version.

Quote statuses

Draft – you're editing it.
Sent – waiting for the client. If the quote has a Valid until date and it passes, you'll see a warning in the list.
Approved – the client agreed. The optional items they want are added to the price.
Rejected – the client didn't accept the quote.
Replaced – a newer sent version has replaced this one. It stays read-only and you can still download its PDF.

A sent quote is approved or rejected by the client right in frego, if it is shared with them, or you record it with Approve and Reject. Both work only on a sent quote. If you didn't send the quote through frego, use Mark as sent first. A sent, approved or rejected quote doesn't go back to a draft. When it needs to change, click New version.

Project structure

From an approved quote, the Create project structure button creates sections, packages and tasks. All regular items are created, plus the optional ones the client accepted. A section the project already has under the same name is reused instead of being created a second time. A project admin who can see the quote can do this, only from the newest version and only once. After that you'll see Structure created on the quote and it can no longer be changed.

If the project already has tasks, the wizard offers Quote only what the project does not have yet. Leave it on and AI won't suggest what already exists.

Quote versions

When the client wants changes, you don't overwrite the sent quote. You prepare a new version, and the original stays exactly as the client received it.

New version – in the quote, click New version. A draft is created as a copy, including prices, the discount, the PDF settings and the notes. You edit it by hand and send it.
Rework with AI – you write what should change and AI prepares the new version. More below.

A new version can be created by the quote's author or by anybody who has it shared for editing and sees its prices, from any finished version, and it always becomes the newest one. Whose the new version is:

When the author or a project admin who can see the quote creates it, they are its author. If that isn't the author of the previous version, they choose the Supplier and the Customer in it themselves; until then it keeps the details from the previous version. The author of the previous version gets it shared for editing, and nobody else can lower or remove that right; only they can give it up.
When a coworker who is named on the quote for editing creates it, its author stays the author of the previous version. The coworker edits the draft but can't share, send, approve or delete it.

What isn't carried over to a new version: the sending history and the sent PDFs. They stay with the version they belong to. The validity date is carried over only if it hasn't passed yet.

A new version takes over the sharing with the team: the setting for the whole project and the named people. It never takes over clients. The client sees the new version only after you add them to it in Sharing or when sending. A private one stays private.

In the list, every quote has one row with the newest version and a v2, v3… badge. Under Older versions you find the previous ones, each with its status, date, price and PDF. In an open quote you switch between versions in the header.

Only the newest version can be sent, approved, rejected or turned into the project structure. If you want to go back to an older one, create a new version from it. It will be the newest.
When you send a new version, the previously sent one gets the Replaced status. It stays read-only and you can still download its PDF.
If you delete the newer sent version, the previous one goes from Replaced back to Sent, and you can send it again, approve it or reject it.
If the client already received one of the older versions, the default e-mail text says by itself that the new quote replaces the previous one.
The project structure is created from one version of a quote only. You can't delete the version it was created from while its sections, packages and tasks exist in the project, and until then you can't create the structure from another version either.
One quote can have at most 50 versions. You can delete versions you no longer need. Only that one version is deleted. An approved version can be deleted only by a project admin. In an open quote you delete a version with ⋯ and Delete.

For version v2 and higher you see the Changes since v1 section (with the number of the previous version): what was added, what was dropped, where the name, description, hours, optional flag or fixed price changed, what was moved, and how the total hours and price changed. Added and changed rows carry a marker in the quote. A coworker sees the changes without prices, a client only what they also see in the PDF.

A client sees only versions they are added to and that have already been sent. If you don't add them to the newest version, they see the last one that is shared with them and don't learn about a newer one from frego. It's the same in the team: whoever can't see a newer version doesn't learn about it.

Rework with AI

Click Rework with AI and write your comment in the What should change field in your own words, for example “it is too expensive for the client, drop the blog and add a second language version”. AI changes only what you write and leaves the rest alone. The result is a new version in the draft status. The original stays unchanged.

A rework can be started by the quote's author or by anybody who has it shared for editing and sees its prices, and only from the newest version. It costs 10 AI credits, the same as a new quote, and they're spent by whoever starts it.

What AI gets:

the sections, packages and tasks of the previous version with their names, descriptions and hours, the summary, the assumptions and the open questions,
your comment,
the instruction the quote was created with, if you're the author of the version the rework starts from,
the original materials, if you leave Use the original materials too switched on. It gets only those that still exist and that you can see. This is useful when the comment adds something that is in the materials.

What AI doesn't get: the hourly rate, the reserve, the discount, fixed prices, the Note for the client, the Internal note, the quote number or the supplier's and customer's details.

Items that stay in the quote keep their fixed price and their Optional flag. A fixed price is final and stays with the item even when AI changes its hours, so check it in the new version.
New items are priced from hours and the rate.
AI can mark a task as optional. It can't make an optional item regular again, mark a whole package as optional or change a price; you do that yourself in the new version.
When it's done, the Changes since v1 section also has the summary What AI changed since v1: what it changed and what it couldn't do from your comment. The version's author and whoever started the rework see the summary. In a draft the AI has just prepared, this part is open straight away.

The rework runs in the background, and you'll see it in the top bar the same way as a new quote. While the new version is being prepared, you can't send, approve or reject the previous one. A version that is still being prepared or that failed is visible only to its author and to whoever started the rework. Nobody else sees it until it's finished.

If the rework fails, you get the credits back and the previous version stays untouched. You can still send it, approve it or reject it. On the failed version you find Try the rework again: the same window opens with your comment, and the failed version is deleted when you try again. You can also delete it yourself, even when you started the rework on somebody else's quote.

A very large quote can't be reworked with AI. frego tells you right away and spends no credits. In that case use New version and edit it by hand.

How the project is doing against the quote

Once you create the project structure from a quote, the quote gets an Actual tab. It shows how many hours you quoted and how many were really worked on the tasks: for the whole quote, for every section and for every package. You can expand a package down to its tasks, and every row takes you to the real section, package or task in the project.

Not started – nobody has tracked time on the item yet.
Within the quote – less than 80 % of the quoted hours are worked.
Close to the limit – 80 % or more are worked.
Over the quote – more was worked than was quoted. That's the time to talk to the client.

With the Show filter you keep only what is over the quote or close to the limit.

Under a package or a section you also find two groups:

Added later – tasks that weren't in the quote and that someone added to the package or section. Their time counts towards that package, because it uses up its hours.
Removed – items of the quote whose task is no longer in the project. Only a task nobody has tracked time on can be deleted, so worked hours can't get lost this way.

A task you move to another package still counts towards the item it was quoted under. The task shows where it is now. At the end there's the Work outside this quote line: time on tasks that didn't come from the quote. It isn't counted in the totals, but thanks to it the numbers match the project's time tracking.

What counts:

Only finished time entries. A running timer is added once you stop it.
Written-off time counts towards the hours (the work was done), but not towards the value of work.
Optional items count only if the client took them when the quote was approved.
The quoted numbers no longer change: the quote the structure was created from is locked.

Whoever sees the whole quote including prices (the author, people added by name and project admins who can see it) also sees money: the Quoted amount (excl. VAT, after the discount), the Value of work and the Difference. The value of work is billable time × the rate stored with the time entry, that is the rate the person had set in the project when they tracked the time. Written-off time isn't counted in it. A coworker who sees the quote through sharing with the whole project sees hours only. A client doesn't see this tab at all.

In screen sharing mode (until you reveal the amounts) the comparison is hidden, because it shows the time actually worked. The numbers are refreshed when you open the tab or come back to the window. The Refresh button loads them right away. In the list of quotes, a quote that is already being worked on shows what percentage of the quoted hours is worked. The comparison belongs to the version the structure was created from, even if the quote has a newer version in the meantime.

Sharing a quote

Only you see a new quote. Not even the project's owner or an admin sees it until you share it with them. You set who gets to see it with the Sharing button in the quote's header. It is always one version that is shared.

Everybody in the project – the project's admins and coworkers see the quote. You choose whether they can only read it (Read) or change it too (Edit). A client never gets to a quote this way.
Named people – you add any member of the team by name and give them Read or Edit. The setting for a particular person takes precedence over the setting for the whole project.
Clients – you add a client only by name and only for reading. They see the quote as it is in the PDF, and only once you send it. A client doesn't see a draft.

Who sees what:

The author and people added by name see the whole quote including prices.
A project admin also sees everything including prices through Everybody in the project.
A coworker sees the structure and the hours through Everybody in the project, without prices. Their PDF is just an overview of hours, too. With Edit they change the structure and the hours. They don't change prices or what is optional, and they don't create a new version.
A client sees only what is in the PDF: without the rate, the reserve and the internal note.

Who can do what:

Edit means changing the draft, and whoever also sees the prices can create a new version or start Rework with AI.
The sharing is changed, the quote is sent and an approval or rejection is recorded by the author and by a project admin who can see the quote. That holds even when the admin only reads it: they can't change a quote a coworker shared with them for reading, but they can send it to the client.
Nobody gives more than they have. Whoever only reads a quote can't give Edit to anybody, not even to themselves. They can lower or remove an edit right somebody already has. It is handed out by the author and by whoever has it themselves.
A version can be deleted by its author or by a project admin who can see it. An approved version can be deleted only by a project admin.

When an admin removes their own access while saving the sharing, frego asks them first. After saving they no longer see the quote, and only the author can give it back.

In the list every quote has a label that says who it is shared with: Only me, Shared · 3, Whole project, Client, or with + client. With the Show filter you keep only Mine or only Shared with me. When somebody else shares a quote with you for reading, it opens without any way to edit it, and at the top you see who shares it with you.

When somebody leaves the project, or their role changes to client or from client, their shares of quotes in the project are removed.

A private quote is seen by nobody but the person who created it, also not after their account is deleted. Drafts the author shared with nobody and never sent are deleted with the account. Shared quotes stay with the people they were shared with, with the same rights, and show Deleted user as their author. They aren't made available to anybody else, not even to the project's owner.

A version that AI is still preparing or that failed is visible only to its author and to whoever started it.

The Actual tab is visible to admins and coworkers who can see the quote itself. Money in it is seen only by whoever sees the whole quote including prices. A client doesn't see it.

Approval by the client

A client you added to a sent version opens it in frego and has two buttons there:

I agree – they tick the optional items they want, see the price with them right away and can add a comment.
I do not agree – they can write what doesn't suit them about the quote.

This approves or rejects the quote the same way as if you had recorded it, and locks it. The decision is final for that version. If the client changes their mind, prepare a new version.

Only a client added to this version can decide, only on a sent quote and only on the newest version. While you're preparing a newer version, they don't see the buttons.
You have to share a new version with the client again. It doesn't become available to them by itself.
The quote's author and the project admins who can see it learn about the client's decision: by a notification in frego and by e-mail. You turn the e-mails off in Settings → Notifications in the Quotes group.
An agreement made outside frego you still record yourself with Approve and Reject.

Decision record

On an approved and on a rejected quote you find the Decision record: who decided, when, whether it was the client in frego or you recorded it by hand, and the client's comment. When the client wrote a comment, the record is open straight away.

With a manual approval or rejection you add a note (for example "approved by e-mail on 12 Oct") and attach attachments: the saved e-mail or a screenshot. At most 5 files, each up to 20 MB: PDF, images (PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF), Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), text (.txt, .md), CSV and e-mails (.eml, .msg).
If an attachment fails to upload, the decision stays recorded. frego lists which files they were, and with Try the upload again you send them once more.
You can add or change the note and the attachments later too, for example once you track the e-mail down. Every change is written to the history.
The note and the attachments are seen by the author, people added by name and project admins who can see the quote. The client sees only who decided and when, and their own comment. Nobody can change the client's comment.
The attachments are private. A download link is valid for a few minutes only.

You also see the decision in the Sending history, among the sends.

FREE or PRO

Materials and quotes are part of the PRO of whoever created the project. When PRO ends, everything stays and you can view it, but you can no longer change it. More in the article When PRO ends. We cover AI credits in the article AI credits.