Advanced options
Decide how and when your client pays you, in which currency, and with which conditions each quote starts.
What it is
Beyond client and lines, each quote carries its commercial and financial conditions. Payment terms are chosen with the client, in step 1 (Who are you quoting?). Validity, how it’s paid (deposit or milestone plan), currency, and retainer live in step 3, Terms (“How long it’s valid, how it’s paid and in which currency.”), below the lines. In the Review and send summary on the right of the editor, the tax-inclusive switch and the document discount or coupon sit next to the totals. The values a new quote starts with are set once in Settings › Quotes.
Requirements
- Permission: Quotes to use the options; Settings to change the defaults.
- Plan: every option is on every plan. The monthly retainer and paying the deposit online require an active payment rail.
- Country: the invoice series is Mexico only; SPEI is Mexico and MXN only; bank transfer with a reference is for Spain, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in their currency.
Payment terms
In Who are you quoting? you choose a chip: Due on receipt, Net 15, Net 30, or Net 60. The Other term chip offers Net 7, Net 45, and Net 90. Net N means N calendar days of credit. When you pick a client, Cord preselects the terms from their profile. Below the summary total you read the term together with the validity, for example “Net 30 · valid for 30 days”.
- Due on receipt: payment is available as soon as the client approves.
- Net 7 to Net 90 (credit): the pay button doesn’t appear on approval. The client sees that the order is confirmed on credit and the date it’s due; online payment is enabled on that date, counted from approval.
Deposit or milestone plan
In the Terms step, How it’s paid offers Single payment, Deposit and balance and Milestone plan. With Deposit and balance, the Deposit (%) field takes a percentage between 1 and 99. Below it, the editor tells you how much the client pays on approval and how much later, for example “Upon approval, your client pays MXN 3,000.00 as a deposit and the rest (MXN 7,000.00) per the terms.” On approval, Cord splits the charge into deposit and balance: the client pays the deposit immediately (even if the terms are on credit) and the balance keeps its due date. Even before approval, the link shows what they’ll pay once approved. Details in Upfront and balance.
With Milestone plan you split the total into 2 to 24 payments, each with its amount (percentage, fixed amount or the remainder), its due date (on approval, N days later, a date or on completion) and an optional condition; if your client is a business, you can add financing interest. It replaces the deposit. Details in Milestone payment plan.
Monthly retainer
In the Terms step, turn on Monthly recurring charge (retainer) to charge the total every month by card.
- It only exists with Due on receipt terms: if you choose any credit term (Net N), the switch disappears.
- It excludes a deposit (when on, the deposit field is hidden) and a milestone plan.
- The client authorizes their card once from the link on approval; they pay the first month then, and the same amount is charged every month until it’s canceled.
Details in Monthly retainers.
Tax-inclusive prices and withholding
- Prices include VAT (with your country’s tax name: IVA, GST, Sales tax…): it’s the switch in the Review and send summary, above the total. With it on, the price you enter already includes tax and Cord breaks it out instead of adding it on top. To have it on for every new quote, turn it on in Settings › Quotes › Taxes, under Behavior in quotes.
- Tax per line: each line carries its rate, taken from your tax catalog. See Products and pricing.
- Withholding: if your catalog has active withholding entries marked as default, Cord applies them to every quote and subtracts them from the total; they show as rows in the summary, on the link, and in the PDF. They aren’t toggled per quote: they’re managed in Settings › Quotes › Taxes. Where your country has no withholding, no row appears.
Sales currency and accounting currency
These are two different pieces of data and Cord doesn’t mix them:
- Sales currency: the one you choose in Which currency are you quoting in?, inside the Terms step. It’s what the client sees on the link, what they’re charged in, and what the invoice is issued in. You can choose MXN, USD, CAD, BRL, EUR, GBP, COP, ARS, CLP, PEN, JPY, CNY, CHF, or AUD.
- Accounting currency: your business’s currency, set in Settings › General. It’s the one you keep your books in.
When both are the same there’s no exchange rate. When they differ, Cord gets a real, dated rate from an external provider and adds a coverage cushion:
| Option | Cushion |
|---|---|
| Light | +1% |
| Normal (default) | +2% |
| Cautious | +5% |
If you change the currency of a document that already has lines, Cord warns you that prices are not converted: the lines keep the same numbers, now in the new currency, and you need to review each price.
If you accept cards with Cord Payments and choose a currency other than your payments account’s (your country’s), the Terms step warns you that the processor deducts a currency conversion surcharge, with its percentage and a link to Settings › Payments › Fees. See Processor surcharges.
When the sales currency differs from your business’s, the Terms step shows a panel with Rate today, Your protected rate, and the question “How cautious do you want to be?” to choose the cushion. The rate is locked when you save the quote (or when you change the currency pair on a draft) and isn’t recalculated: the invoice declares it as the exchange rate even if the market moves.
No provable rate, no save. If no source publishes that pair’s rate at that moment, Cord doesn’t save the quote in that currency and asks you to try again or quote in your business currency. It never uses a made-up rate. The “Rate locked for 30 days” label is informational: the rate is kept as long as you don’t change the pair.
More in Treasury and FX Lock.
Validity
In the Terms step, the Valid for field sets how many days the proposal is valid: 15, 30, 60, or your organization’s default. A daily process marks as Expired every sent or viewed quote whose date has passed, and three days earlier it can alert you (see Notifications). An expired quote no longer accepts the client’s approval; to bring it back, send a new version with Modify and resend: the validity restarts from that day with the same length.
Notes and conditions
- Note for your client (optional): the block at the end of the editor, with free text for the quote (for example, “on-site delivery included”). It appears on the link and in the PDF.
- PDF conditions: your business policies (cancellation, delivery, warranty) are set once in Settings › Quotes › PDF document, one per line, and are printed only in the PDF.
Defaults (Settings › Quotes)
In Settings › Quotes › Numbering & tax you define what every quote starts with:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Quote number prefix | Up to 6 letters or numbers (Cord uppercases it). The quote number is prefix, hyphen, and a 4-digit sequence, for example COT-0149. Each account starts with its country’s prefix (Q in the United States, COT in Mexico, PRE in Spain), and if you leave it empty, Cord goes back to it. |
| Series (optional) | Mexico only: series for CFDI numbering. |
| Default rate (%) | The rate new lines get when your catalog has no profile marked as default. |
| Withholding applied | Read only: lists your catalog’s default withholding, with the Manage taxes link. |
| Default validity (days) | Between 1 and 365. The editor starts with this value. |
| Default payment terms | Due on receipt or a Net term (7, 15, 30, 45, 60, or 90 days). Preselected on creation; the client’s profile wins when you pick one. |
| Default deposit (%) | Between 1 and 99, or empty for no deposit. Prefills the editor field. |
| Default legal text | Printed at the bottom of the quote link and the PDF, in small type. Leave it empty to hide it. |
Changing a default doesn’t modify quotes already created. Milestone plan templates and the financing interest values live in Settings › Quotes › Payment plans.
Limits by plan
The options on this page have no cap by plan. Online payment, retainers, and automatic bank transfer depend on having an active payment rail in your country (see Payment methods).
Common problems
I don’t see the retainer switch. You chose a credit term (Net N); retainers only exist with Due on receipt terms.
I can’t change validity, deposit, currency, or retainer. You’re building a new version of a quote that was already sent: the client, currency, and terms stay as they were sent. When you send it, the validity restarts from that day with the same length. If you need a different length or different terms, duplicate the quote.
I don’t see the deposit field. You have the retainer turned on, or you chose another option under How it’s paid.
Cord couldn’t get the exchange rate. No source published that pair’s rate at that moment. Try again shortly or quote in your business currency.
I changed the default validity and my quotes didn’t change. That’s expected: it applies to new ones.