Quoting from an inquiry

Most work starts with someone asking a question. This is how that becomes a booking.

1. The inquiry arrives

Someone fills in the form on one of your inquiry services. It lands in Inquiries with what they gave you: their name and email, the service they asked about, their message, and how they found you. A location comes too, where the service asks for one.

Your calendar is untouched. Nothing is booked and nothing is charged.

Inquiries only ever arrive this way. There is no button to add one by hand. If a conversation started on Instagram or over the phone, add the person under Contacts and work from their record instead.

2. You reply with your pricing

Open the inquiry and press Reply. Once the ball is in their court the same button reads Send message.

Attach your rate card. A message carries up to 25 MB across 20 files. Your pricing PDF, a sample gallery link, whatever you normally send, goes with it.

This is the part that replaces sending people off to a separate pricing page. You answer the question and give them the numbers in one message.

Their reply comes back into the same thread, so the whole exchange stays together. It also appears in Messages alongside everything else.

3. You talk it through

Back and forth as long as it takes. Questions about coverage, dates, what is included.

Two things worth doing while you are in it:

Keep the numbers in the thread. If they mention a figure on the phone, send yourself a short reply on the inquiry saying so. That way everything about this client stays in one place, including the parts that happened elsewhere.

Keep replying from CoreHue where you can. If you answer from your own mail app instead, CoreHue still captures it, so the record holds either way. See Replying from your own email.

4. You turn it into work

Once you have agreed something, the inquiry itself offers the next step. The contact's details carry across, so nothing is retyped.

Create proposal, when there is a choice to make or paperwork to sign. Put your items, your add-ons and your levels on it. Attach the agreement, set the payment, and send one link. This is the right call for weddings and commercial work. See Creating proposals.

Create booking, when everything is settled and you just need it in the calendar.

Create invoice, when the work is agreed and all that is left is the money.

Send contract or Send questionnaire on their own, when you need paperwork or details before committing to anything.

All of these except Create booking sit in the three-dot menu on the inquiry, alongside Close inquiry.

5. What a proposal actually does

Worth knowing before you send one, because the sequence surprises people.

Sending creates nothing. The proposal simply sits with the client. No contract, no invoice and no booking exists yet.

Accepting locks their choices and creates the contract and the invoice. Whatever they picked is now fixed, and there is a real invoice with a real number.

The booking appears last, if you switched on Create a booking, and only once they have signed the agreement and made the first payment. It arrives already confirmed, and their booking page becomes the place the rest of the job is run from. It goes on your calendar without checking your availability, so it can overlap something else.

Your own counter-signature never holds this up. It is yours to add whenever.

6. Or you close it

Not everything converts. Close inquiry asks why: Not a fit, Date unavailable, Client declined, No response, Duplicate inquiry or Other. A reason is required.

Answer honestly. Over a year the pattern tells you something useful. Constant "date unavailable" means you are out of room. Constant "client declined" means your pricing or your pitch needs work. They need different fixes.

Closing does not withdraw anything you already sent. A proposal sitting with the client stays live. If they accept it later, the inquiry moves to Booked.

What makes this work

Speed. This is the single biggest factor in whether an inquiry turns into work. Someone asking you is very likely asking two other people. A reply within the hour, even a short one saying when you will send details, puts you ahead.

Attach the numbers. Inquiries that get a "let's set up a call to discuss pricing" reply go cold. Give them the figure. See Pricing your services.

Use the inquiry, not your own mail app. Everything stays in one place, and converting later is one action instead of retyping.

Set up your auto-reply. The note someone gets the moment they inquire buys you time. Say when you will reply properly. See Inquiry services.