Yes. When a customer agrees to a quote, you can turn it into a project in one step. Each line item becomes a task, and the total can become the project budget. You can also create a project from an invoice.

  1. Open the estimate and choose Actions › Convert to Project. It's available at any status, not only once the estimate is accepted.

    The Actions menu on an estimate for Fernleaf Media, with Convert to Project between Send Reminder and Revert to Draft

  2. In Create Project from Estimate, check the Project Title. It starts as the estimate's subject. The project is created for the estimate's customer.

  3. Tick any Additional Options (see below) and choose what the task titles contain.

    The Create Project from Estimate popup for Fernleaf Media, with the project title taken from the estimate's subject, four Additional Options checkboxes and three choices for the task titles

  4. Click Create. The new project opens.

The options

  • Put Total Amount into Project Budget: the estimate total before tax becomes the project budget, and the Budget Type is set to Total Project Fees. See entering a project budget.
  • Put Line Item Quantities into Task Estimated Hours: each line's quantity becomes its task's estimated hours. Use it when the quantities are hours.
  • Put Line Item Amounts into Task Fixed Billable Amounts: each task gets a fixed amount to bill, equal to its line amount before tax, with the line's description as its notes. It's on the task's $ tab, ready to invoice with Add Fixed Amount. See managing fixed-price projects.
  • Create new Section in Project for each Inventory Item Type: tasks are grouped into a section per item type, such as "Consulting" or "Design", in alphabetical order. Without it, all the tasks go into Section 1.
  • Task Titles in the new project should contain: Line Item Type & Description (the default), Line Item Type or Line Item Description. A line without a description uses its type.

Each task also gets the line's description, starts as Not Started, and has no assignee or dates yet.

What the new project gets

  • Customer: the estimate's customer. The budget and fixed amounts are in that customer's currency, as on the estimate.
  • Members: you, plus anyone set to join all new projects. Each member gets their default rates. The estimate's prices don't become billing rates.
  • Everything else comes from your account defaults, as for any new project: the billing method, the budget type (unless you ticked the budget option), the timesheet categories and the project status. There's no start or end date. Change them in the project's settings. For fixed-price work, set the billing method to Not Billable, so time isn't billed on top of the fixed amounts.

Good to know

  • Who can do it: you need to open estimates (Administrator or Finance Manager) and create projects (Administrator, Portfolio Manager or Project Manager). A Finance Manager without a project role doesn't see Convert to Project. It's also hidden when the Projects module is switched off in Settings › General.
  • The estimate doesn't change. It keeps its status, so you can still invoice it. Nothing on the estimate records the project, and choosing Convert to Project again creates a second project.
  • Project reports only count invoice lines linked to the project. Lines added with Add Fixed Amount are linked automatically, but lines copied by Create Invoice aren't. To link them, switch on Enable Project Invoice Link in Settings › Invoice & Bill Settings, then choose the project under Link project on each invoice line.

To plan and run the work from here, see getting started with projects.