Switching from HoneyBook to CoreHue
HoneyBook runs the client side of many kinds of service business. CoreHue covers the same ground for photographers specifically, so the language already fits your work, and it adds the thing HoneyBook leaves to another tool: client galleries.
The biggest adjustment is how things are organised. HoneyBook hangs everything off a Project. CoreHue has no single place like that.
What things are called
| In HoneyBook | In CoreHue | The difference |
|---|---|---|
| Project | Booking, or the contact record | There's nothing called a Project. A confirmed job is a Booking. Everything else about a person, every document, message, invoice and payment, sits on their contact record under tabs |
| Contact form, lead form | Intake form | A public form that creates a contact and opens a conversation carrying every answer |
| Inquiry, pipeline stage | Inquiry | An inquiry is open, booked or closed. There are no custom pipeline stages |
| Smart File | Proposal | One link with your pricing, optional client choices, an optional contract and a payment schedule. The client accepts, signs and pays in it |
| Brochure, package selection | Client choices and add-ons in a proposal | Named choice groups the client picks one from, plus add-ons with quantities |
| Contract | Contract | Same word. Yours is a rich-text document with variables that fill themselves in and fields your client completes |
| Invoice, payment schedule | Invoice with a payment schedule | Up to 12 scheduled rows on one invoice, each with a label, amount and due date |
| Client portal | Nothing, but see the difference | There's no single portal to log into. Each document has its own link, and once a booking exists, the client's booking page becomes their one place for documents and payments |
| Session, scheduler | Booking service | Three modes: inquiry, direct booking or mini session |
| Questionnaire | Questionnaire | Sent on its own, or scheduled around a booking. It can't be attached to a proposal |
| Template | Templates | Items, plus three libraries: contracts, questionnaires and emails |
| Automation, workflow | Reminders and scheduled questionnaires | A fixed set of automatic actions rather than a workflow builder. You can't chain your own triggers and actions |
| Bookkeeping, expenses | Nothing | CoreHue tracks money that moves through CoreHue. It doesn't track expenses. See Finance |
| Delivering photos | Galleries | The part HoneyBook doesn't do at all |
What to bring across
Your contract wording. Copy the text out of your HoneyBook templates and into a contract template, then swap the blanks for variables. CoreHue also seeds a set of starter templates you can adapt instead of starting blank.
Your forms. Rebuild a lead capture form as an intake form, and anything you send to an existing client as a questionnaire. Both builders have display logic, so questions that appear only in certain cases come across. You rebuild them rather than move a file.
Your packages. HoneyBook packages become a combination of two things: Items for the prices you reuse, and client choices or add-ons on a proposal for the levels you offer.
Your clients. There's no spreadsheet import. Add the ones you're working with now in Contacts, and let the rest arrive as they inquire or book.
Signed contracts and paid invoices. Download the PDFs before you close the account. They don't move, and neither does your payment history.
Set these up first
- Business name, logo and details in Settings → Business. Contracts and invoices fill in from here.
- Your saved contract signature, under Settings → Business → Contract signature.
- Your default currency in Settings → Profile. It's permanent.
- Connect Stripe.
- One booking service, so inquiries arrive with real detail attached.
Your first week
Day 1. Finish setup and the five things above. Take the tour of the app.
Day 2. Adapt one starter contract template into the agreement you actually use, with variables where the blanks were.
Day 3. Build the service your inquiries usually want, as an inquiry service, and turn on your booking page.
Day 4. Put your Items in, then build a proposal to yourself with a contract and a payment schedule on it. Accept it, sign it and pay it, so you've seen the whole client path once.
Day 5. Build a gallery from a recent job so delivery is ready before you need it. See Creating a gallery.
Then. Take your next inquiry through CoreHue from the first reply, and finish what's already in flight in HoneyBook.
What's genuinely different
One person, one account. No team members, no second-shooter logins, no permission levels.
No workflow builder. What runs on its own is a fixed set. Reminders for bookings, invoices and documents. Questionnaires scheduled around a booking. Contracts signed at the point of booking. Invoices raised from bookings and accepted proposals.
No client portal to log into. Your client gets links, and a booking page that gathers everything once a booking exists.
See What CoreHue doesn't do for the full list.