Turn WhatsApp Enquiries into FreshBooks Estimates
This recipe turns a new enquiry in chat into a FreshBooks client and a draft estimate, built from your own services and rates. Part of connecting FreshBooks to WhatsApp and AI chat.
What happens today
A prospect asks on Instagram how much a project would cost. You reply with questions, they answer two days later, and you then create the client and the estimate in FreshBooks from a scrolled-up chat. Some enquiries never get an estimate because the details were spread across too many messages.
The flow that works
- AeroChat asks your scoping questions: what they need, the deadline and the budget range.
- It finds the matching services in FreshBooks and replies with your standard rates.
- It finds the client in FreshBooks, or creates a new one.
- It creates a draft estimate with the services and a note of the brief.
- You review the estimate and send it from FreshBooks.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When someone asks what a project or service would cost, follow these steps.
- Ask what they need, when they need it by and their budget range, if they have not said.
- Find the matching services in FreshBooks and reply with our standard rates. If nothing matches, say I will price it myself.
- Ask for their name, business name, email and phone number.
- Find the client in FreshBooks by email. If there is no match, create a new client with their details.
- Create a draft estimate in FreshBooks for that client with the matching services, and a note with a short summary of the brief, the deadline and the budget range.
- Tell them I will review the estimate and send it within one working day (example).
Never promise a price outside our standard rates or agree a discount. If the deadline is under one week (example), hand the conversation to me after creating the draft. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the scoping questions and the reply time to your own before you paste it.
What to connect
- FreshBooks. Approve AeroChat’s access to your FreshBooks account when AeroChat asks. It reads services and clients and creates clients and estimates. There is no key to copy.
- Your knowledge base. Upload your service descriptions, past project examples and terms to AeroChat so it can answer questions before it asks for details.
After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect FreshBooks, add your knowledge base if the recipe uses one, then switch it on. If it built the connection from FreshBooks’ public documentation, the checklist asks you to check it once against the current docs.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What you still decide
- Which scoping questions AeroChat asks.
- Which services it can put on an estimate.
- Which enquiries come straight to you.
The result to expect
Every serious enquiry becomes a FreshBooks client with a draft estimate and the brief attached. You review and send instead of piecing it together from the chat, and prospects get a price sooner.
Measure it with your own numbers: enquiries that receive an estimate, and estimates accepted, for a month before and after.
Next: answer invoice questions in chat.
Works on every chat channel
This workflow runs the same way on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, the chat on your website and email, with the same FreshBooks connection behind it. See what each channel does on the FreshBooks integration page.
Create your first FreshBooks estimate from chat
Paste the recipe, approve access to FreshBooks, and ask the chat for a price on one of your services.