Every estimate carries a quiet little deadline, and that’s a good thing. A validity window keeps your pricing honest and nudges clients to decide before your rates or availability shift. Here’s exactly what happens when that clock runs out, what your client sees, and how to bring a lapsed quote back to life in seconds.
What the validity window actually does
When you set a validity window on an estimate, you’re telling Fee-Lion the last day this quote can be approved as-is. Until that date, the estimate sits in a normal, approvable state. Your client can open it from their magic-link portal and click approve without any login at all.
When the date passes, the estimate moves to an Expired status. Nothing is deleted and nothing is lost; the quote, its line items, tax, and deposit percentage all stay exactly as you built them. What changes is the door: an expired estimate can no longer be approved by the client in the portal. They’ll see that the offer has lapsed and a friendly note to reach back out to you.
- Draft and Sent estimates count down toward their validity date.
- Expired estimates are read-only for the client; the approve button is gone.
- Approved estimates are locked in and never expire, even if the original date passes.
Tip: Expiry only blocks approval, not conversion. If a client said yes by email a day late, you can still convert the estimate to an invoice yourself. The validity window is a guardrail for self-serve approval, not a hard wall around the work.
How to revive a lapsed estimate
Reviving a quote is a two-minute job, and you’ve got a few good options depending on whether anything has changed since you first sent it.
- Open Estimates in the left sidebar and find the lapsed quote (filter by the Expired status to surface them quickly).
- Open the estimate and push the validity date forward. Same pricing, fresh deadline, and it returns to an approvable state.
- If your rates or scope have shifted, edit the line items first, tasks, fees, discounts, or surcharges, then extend the date so the client approves the new numbers.
- Hit Send again. Your client gets a fresh portal link and can approve in one click, no login required.
When a fresh start makes more sense
If the project has changed enough that the old quote is no longer a useful starting point, duplicate it into a new estimate instead of reviving it. You keep the original on record (handy for your win/loss reporting) while building a clean version with current pricing and a new validity window.
Set smarter defaults so it happens less
If estimates are expiring before clients act, your default window might simply be too short. Head to Settings → Preferences and open the Estimates section to set a default validity period that fits your sales rhythm, two weeks, thirty days, whatever gives clients room to say yes without going stale.
Tip: Pair a comfortable validity window with a clear deposit default in the same Estimates settings. A quote that’s easy to approve and collects a deposit on approval turns far more often, and far faster, than one with an aggressive deadline.
Treat expiry as a gentle prompt rather than a problem. A lapsed estimate is just a conversation waiting to be reopened, and Fee-Lion keeps everything intact so you can pick it right back up.
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