Hello everyone! Welcome to the Getting Started Series! My name is Cameron and I’m the Director of Education here at Dubsado!

You’re here because you want to get your business up and running with Dubsado. Well, you've come to the right place (and the right platform by the way). My job is to make the setup process as smooth as possible for you. So, consider me your personal Dubsado tour guide, mentor, and hype man — all rolled into one.

And speaking of all-in-one, say goodbye to using 5 different apps to get your clients booked. Our goal with this series is to give you the tools and information you need to take your account from being completely empty to client-ready!

I’ll be walking with you every step of the way, starting with the basics (like adding in your logo and branding), to helping you get your services and contract ready for booking, and show you how to send everything out to a potential lead! We’re even going to sprinkle some automation magic in there to save you time and energy along the way!

By the end of this series, you’re going to feel confident and ready to manage your clients, automate your work, and grow your business — all with using Dubsado! I’m ready! Are you? Let’s get moving — I’ll see you in the next video!

There are 3 settings we like to call “The Essential Settings” that are vital to get set up first! These settings are where you put your branding into Dubsado and connect your payment processor & email. If you want to show off your logo, get paid, and send emails from YOUR email (instead of that spammy-looking "mail@dubsado.com” email), keep watching. But first, log into your Dubsado account and then let’s get started!

Click on the gear icon in the top right corner of your screen to get to your settings!

The first tab that opens up will be the Branding tab where you can add your business logo, business name, and important contact information! Your brand color will also show up in some important areas like buttons for sending content in emails, and your scheduler templates. We recommend selecting a darker color for your brand because the button text that contains content in your emails will always be white.

We’re trying to get you paid, so let’s head over to the Receive Money tab to connect your payment processor. The first order of business is entering your country and currency settings! I’m in the US, so I’m going to pick “United States” and “United States Dollar”.

After entering those in, you’ll see the next screen where you can connect to Stripe, Square, or PayPal! You can connect to Square OR Stripe, but not two of these at the same time. If you want to connect PayPal in addition to one of these two, you can do that as well! Or if you prefer for your payment processors to ride solo, you can go with just one!

Regardless of which payment processor you choose, all three can accept credit card payments. If you do bank transfers or US ACH payments, you’ll want to connect with Stripe as it’s the only processor that offers that.

I know what you’re thinking… “These payment processors already take so much from me, does Dubsado take a cut on top of this?” and the answer is NO! We also want you to keep your money, so you’ll never pay more than your processing platform’s fees. And see this button at the bottom? Toggle it “on” to allow your clients to leave you a tip for all your hard work.

Last up is the Emails tab! Dubsado has 3 options for connecting your email. Sign in with Google, Sign in with Microsoft, or SMTP for email accounts other than Google or Microsoft.

If you have a Gmail or Google Workspace account, the process is very simple! All you need to do is click the blue "Sign in with Google" button, sign into your account, and you’re all set. Outgoing emails from Dubsado will come from your email address and any direct replies from your clients will appear inside of their project as well.

If you have a Microsoft email, you can follow the same method as above. Click the “Sign in with Microsoft” button, sign into the account you’d like to connect, and follow the prompts to finish. With a Microsoft email, there’s just one extra step you’ll need to take — turn on the “Import Client Emails” toggle so their replies will come into the project for you!

If you don’t have a Google or Microsoft email account, click on “Use SMTP” and select your email provider. If you don’t see yours listed, you’ll choose “Other” and then enter the settings requested. The settings for each provider are different so check out some of the help articles below this video or click on the chat bubble in the bottom right corner of your account!

Now that you’re ready to show off your brand, accept payments, and send emails, I’m going to show you how quickly you can get a contract and invoice out to a lead! I’ll see you in the next video!

You’ll be shocked with how simple it is to send out a contract and invoice to your client with Dubsado! The faster you can get everything out to your leads, the faster you can get them booked — and Dubsado is here to help you do that.

Starting from your Dashboard, let’s head over to the Projects page where you’ll manage all of your clients and projects. We’ll cover this page in more detail later, but for right now, let’s jump into this sample project.

The next thing you’re going to do is change the sample client’s email to your own email. This way, once you send the contract and invoice through this project, it will land in your inbox so you can see things from the client’s perspective. Also, if you’re on a trial with us, doing this will keep you from using one of your 3 trial clients for testing things out!

First, we’ll make sure we have an invoice ready to go. Click on the “Invoices” tab at the top, and then click “Add” to create a blank invoice. Once it's created, we’ll add a line item to the invoice for 1:1 Coaching Services. We’ll add a nice little description for 10 sessions, set the quantity to 10, then set the price to $100, and then click “Add Item”. You’ll see the invoice total show up at the bottom. And if you just have a one-off session or service to charge for, you’ll put the quantity to 1 here.

Alright, perfect! Next, we’ll add a payment plan. A payment plan is how you can set due dates and add automated email reminders to your invoice. We’ll talk more about these later in the series, but if you’re tired of late payments, these will be a game changer for you! But for now, we’ll just add a 50/50 payment plan to this invoice. Half due after they sign the contract, and the other half due 2 months later.

Now, for those of you who just want to get an invoice out to the client quickly, you can click “Send >> Via Email”. You’ll see the email composer pop up next. And you see this button in the body of the email? That links directly to the invoice! Feel free to give this email a quick edit if you like, then click “Send” when you’re ready!

Now that we have the invoice created, let’s add the contract into the mix. To demonstrate this, we’re just going to use a sample contract that comes in your account. Later in the series, I’ll give you a template to put your own contract info in, but right now the sample contract will work just fine.

First, we’ll grab the sample contract in the top left corner. This is where your contract will live in the project. Once we choose our sample contract, you’ll see a Preview modal pop up. When I click “Add”, Dubsado makes a copy of the contract template and adds it into the project. So now, if I want to make tweaks to this contract, I can do so without affecting my base template. But, because we’re using smart fields in this contract and they’re pulling over invoice details automatically, there are no edits needed, so let’s go ahead and click “Send”.

Same as sending the invoice, you’ll see the email composer pop up with a button linking to the contract! You can send the contract by itself just like we did the invoice, but if you want to send them together, here’s how you’ll do that. Down at the bottom, click the “List” icon. This will bring up a list of all the items that are in this project. Click the “+” button to add the invoice to this email, and then click “Send” to email both the contract & the invoice together!

You see how fast that is? Now, what if I told you I can speed the process up even more for you? In this video, you saw me manually add my services to the invoice. Well that can add up quick if I’m doing that for every single client. In the next video, I’ll show you how to add your services and products into Dubsado, so that it saves you time when creating your invoices. I’ll see you in the next video!

When you’re creating invoices for your clients, the last thing you want to do is retype the details of your services — every. single. time. So in this video, we’re going to add your packages as templates you can edit in Dubsado so you can spend less time making invoices and more time making money.

Now, you might be saying to yourself “I do completely custom work Cameron, so I don’t need Packages”, but you can just think about the term “package” as a service or product (which you do have!) So, log into your Dubsado account, follow along with me and let’s put them in!

First, we’ll go to Templates >> Packages. This area is where all of your services or products live. There’s a few sample packages that come with your account, but for this video, we’re going to build one together. Feel free to remove the sample packages later if you want.

In the top right, click “Add Package”. Then click in the header to name the package. Your clients can’t see this name on invoices, so you can title it whatever you like to keep things organized on your end. For mine, I’m putting 10 coaching sessions as the title.

Next, we’ll click “New Line Item”. You’ll notice that this looks exactly like creating an invoice from scratch in the last video, except now we’re making this a template, so we only have to do this once! Now, clients will see what you name this item, so just be mindful of that when you’re adding this in. I’ll keep it simple here, and put “10 Coaching Sessions” as well. For the description, I’m going to add in the details. Now, for me, that’s “10, 1-hour coaching sessions, 1 business planning call, and a weekly progress report”.

For the quantity, I’ll put 10, for the price, I’ll put $100 — and you’ll see the total calculated on the right. If you just have a single service, like Logo Design or a photography session, you’ll put the quantity to “1”. You can also add Tax and Income Categories for accounting purposes, but for right now we’ll click “Add Item” at the bottom. Now we have our line item for this package! If this package had more items to add, click “New Line Item” and do that process over again. But this one is good to go, so we’ll click “Return to Packages” at the bottom, and we’re done! Now you can see how much time you’ll save making invoices!

Now, for all my custom work business owners, let me show you how you can take advantage of packages as well! For a custom package, we’re going to create what I call a “base template”. With a base template, you’re laying down the bones of your package, but setting the specific details and quantities later based on what your client needs.

For example’s sake, let’s say I run a web design company and the package depends on how many pages the client needs. I put the details in just like a normal package, but I leave my quantity at 1 and set the price to be the price per page. Now when I apply this package to a client, I can just edit the quantity to match the client’s page count, as well as customize any other details, and you’ll see the total invoice number change. The beauty of this is — I don’t have to retype all of these extra details every time I need to invoice a client! With this as the starting point, I can just make tweaks as needed.

Now, if you remember from the last video, I showed you how to create line items from scratch and payment plans from scratch as well. In the next video, we’re going to create a payment plan to make sure you’re never chasing clients for payments again! See you in the next video!

Payment reminders. How many times have you dreaded sending them, or forgot to send them out entirely? When we talk about “automating your work”, payment reminders are one of the most important things to have set on auto-pilot for your business. That’s why with Dubsado, you don’t have to think about sending them at all. In this video, we’re going to build a payment plan template that you can add to your invoices. This template will have automated payment reminders baked in to make sure that your clients don’t forget to pay on time. So, log into your account and let’s get going!

Let’s head to Templates >> Payment Plans. A payment plan in Dubsado allows us to set the number of payments, due dates, and amounts for an invoice. Just like Packages, there are a few examples that already come in your account, so if one of these matches how you invoice a client, then you just saved yourself an extra step! Just so you know how to make one yourself, we’ll set up a new one.

First, click “Create New Template” in the top right corner. Then we’ll give the template a name by clicking the pencil icon next to the title. You can always update the title later at any time by clicking on the pencil icon again. For this example, we’re going to build a payment plan with 4 equal installments. Installments are just a fancy term for “how many payments the invoice will be broken down into”. So let’s add those in now.

Now that we have the 4 installments in place, we need to decide when each payment is due, for how much, and if we want automated email reminders attached (which obviously, we do)! We’ll start with the amount due, since it’s the easiest. I’m using the option “Divide Equally” for all of the installments, which as you guessed it, divides the total invoice into equal payment amounts. There are other options for Amount Due like a fixed dollar amount which is perfect if you take a flat fee upfront or a percentage of the invoice total if you divide your payments up with percentages.

The next thing we’ll set up is when these payments will be due. We’re going to go with a relative due date. The option we’ll use here is “after contract is signed” and set the time to “0 days” which means immediately after the contract is signed. The term "Relative" just means it’s relative to certain milestones that happen within each individual project. You can see there are some other excellent options based on the project date as well! The rest of our payments will be 1 month after the contract is signed, 2 months after, and then 3 months after.

Besides relative options for your due dates, you can set a fixed date which is a set date on the calendar or you can go with a TBD option which is perfect for situations where the due date is based on a mid-way point through a service.

Now it’s time to talk about what you’ve all been waiting for: automated payment reminders! We can set these up at the bottom of each installment. Click “Add Reminder” at the bottom and then set it for “1 week - before the due date”. Let's leave the time as 9:00 AM, and also leave the email as the default payment reminder that comes with your account.

We can add as many reminders as we want to each installment. I’m going to add one for the day the payment is due, which would be “0 days - before due date”, and then I want one more for “2 days - after the due date.” Then I’m going to rinse and repeat this for the other installments as well. With these reminders set up, the client is automatically notified before each payment is due, the day it’s due, and if their payment is late (which you’ll see a lot less, if not at all now).

As you can see, setting up these templates in your brand is going to save you so. much. time. when you have clients trying to book or make payments! Once the payment plan is added to an invoice, you can set it and forget it!

Now that we’ve taken care of everything we need for invoicing, it’s time to talk about the other important puzzle piece for getting booked — the contract. Dubsado’s forms have a ton of amazing customization options! While you’re getting comfortable with your new system, I have a plug & play contract template for you to add to your account so you can start getting clients booked in Dubsado ASAP. Head over to the next video and we’ll talk about building a form.

Our main goal in this series is to get your Dubsado account ready for booking! But in order to do that, you’ll want to know how to use proposals and contracts. So, go ahead and log into your account, and let’s get going! For this video, we’re going to quickly look at an example that shows you what the different elements look like when used on a form. In the next couple of videos, I’ll give you a plug-and-play contract and proposal template so you don’t have to build your own forms. This video will just help you customize things later if you want to!

When we build forms in Dubsado, the “Form Elements” tab to the left is where we can add in our content. You can see all of the elements available for this form type. To add an element to the form, you can either drag and drop it or you can click it. You can drag and drop the element anywhere, but clicking adds it to the bottom of the form. Now let’s talk about what these elements can actually do for us!

This is the Container element. If we click on the container we can change how many columns this container will be if we want to change up the layout. The container element comes with some really sweet options for changing the look of the container and the content inside of it too. We can adjust the container width to give a full-width look so that it spans across the whole screen. We can also adjust how far the content INSIDE the container spreads. We can also change the background of the container by changing the color, or adding an image to be the background.

The Text Box element lets us add in our own text. If I click the pencil icon on the right, I can edit the text in-line. I can also change the font style and size in the menu here, and then add any formatting to the text by clicking on the “A” button.

Add photos to the form with the Images element. When we click inside the element, we can select an existing image from the Image Library, or upload a brand new image.

Dividers are perfect for separating out different sections of the form, and Spacers create some space between the elements themselves! These elements give your clients’ eyes a break so filling out forms is actually enjoyable.

Short Answers are great for brief, single-line responses. These are made for collecting things like First Name, Last Name and Email or any other important contact information.

Free Responses are a little bit longer. They’re more geared towards multi-line responses and paragraphs, like if you’re having clients tell you more about them and what they’re looking for.

A Date Select lets clients select a date. All of those are really useful right? Well you’re really going to love this next one!

Another element that is super important for proposals is the Package element. This is how we can add the packages we created earlier to our forms so clients can choose the service they want. We’ll dive deeper into this specific element in an upcoming video!

A Dropdown is for providing multiple options for clients to choose from in a dropdown format. Clients can only choose one answer from the list of available options you give them.

And just like Dropdowns, we can use the Multiple Choice element, to ask clients a “Yes or No” type question. We can add more than just two options if we want, but clients can still only choose one answer from this list.

Now, if we want clients to make multiple selections from the options available, we’ll use a Checkbox.

The last, and arguably coolest, element is the File Uploader. This is perfect if you want your clients to upload things like images, Word docs, or PDFs to the form.

Now that you know what each element does, grab your contract because it’s time to put it into Dubsado! Before we move onto the next video, I want to take a quick temperature check and see if you’re still with me and feeling good. Are you seeing the possibilities of what Dubsado can do? Can you visualize your business feeling streamlined and organized? I hope you just answered, “Yes!” These next two videos will blow your mind! Let’s head over to the next one! See you there!

Alright, it’s time to get your contract ready to go so you can start getting clients booked, and I’m going to walk you through it step by step in this video. Like I mentioned in the last video, this template I created for you is plug-and-play, so you don’t need to worry about building your contract from scratch. If you haven’t already, log into your account so you can follow along with me.

The first thing we’ll do is add our logo to the top of the form so our brand is front and center. To do this, click on the image element at the top. Then click “Add Files”, grab your logo, and click the image to add it in to the image element. Depending on how big your logo is, you can adjust the scale of it down here at the bottom. I’ll bring my percent down to make it a little smaller.

The next thing we’re going to do is copy and paste the Terms & Conditions from our old contract into this Dubsado template. I’ll copy the text from my old contract, and then click the pencil icon in this text box on the Dubsado template — delete the example text here, then paste in my contract details. To lock it all in, click the checkbox! It’s literally that simple. I’ll do it one more time just to give you a good example.

Now, depending on how long your contract is, you can rinse and repeat this for each clause in the contract. If you need more clauses in your contract, just make a copy of the element using this duplicate button. Personally, I like to put an initials box at the end of each clause to make sure the client is paying attention to what’s in each clause, but keeping those in is up to you!

Remember in one of the very first videos of this series when I showed you how the contract auto-filled the client and invoice information directly onto the form for me? That was possible because of these things right here. These are called smart fields. When I add this contract to a project, it’s going to replace this code with the actual project information, so that means I can use this template in any project I want and it will do the heavy lifting for me!

The smart fields that come on this form should work just fine for you, but if you want to experiment with different ones in the future, just click the pencil icon in the text box and you’ll see the Smart Field menu button right here. The invoice category is where you can find other options.

Lastly, at the bottom of the contract, we have two signature elements in place for you — one for the client to sign and one for you as the business owner to countersign! If you want to preview how this form will look, you can click the “Preview” button at the top. When you’re finished with everything, don’t forget to click “Save”.

Doesn’t it feel amazing knowing that you have your contract ready to go now? And that you never have to use that PDF or Word doc again? We have gotten so much done in such a short time! And now, we just have one piece left to add to get your clients booked and that’s the proposal! I created a plug-and-play template for the proposal as well and you can copy it to your account in the next video!

When it comes to pitching your pricing to a potential client, it's completely normal to feel a little bit nervous because you obviously want to make a good impression and show them that your services are worth the investment. In this video, we’re going to get your proposal template set up so you can showcase your packages and book clients with confidence!

As promised, we have two templates, that are plug-and-play that I’m going to use to demonstrate. The first one is perfect for those of you who offer standard, set pricing for your services, and the second one is for all of my business owners who do custom work. We have proposals for everyone! So log into your account now, and let’s get started!

We’re going to start with the Standard Package Proposal, which is when you want your client to choose the different services that they want. First, let’s change the name at the top by clicking on the pencil icon. I’m going to name mine “Coaching Proposal”.

Just like the contract in the previous video, we’ll add your logo at the top first. And now that you’ve already uploaded your logo to the Image Library, it’s right there ready to go. Then we’ll change the “name of the proposal” section. Click on the pencil icon to rename it.

Now for the good stuff! Let’s add your packages to this proposal. Click on the first package element here to edit it. Then, click the dropdown in the menu to the left and you’ll see a list of the packages that you’ve set up already. This is why we created your packages first in the earlier video so that once we got here you’d already be good to go! See how that works? Then add the package to this element! Now your package is connected to the “Select” button. We’ll repeat these few steps for the other packages as well.

If you have any optional add-ons, you can do the exact same thing below. Click on the package element, select your “add on” package, and put it in. Remember that the term “package” is just an umbrella term for services and products — and that includes add-ons and a la carte items too!

At the bottom, if you need to ask any additional questions, you can do that here. Because you already learned how the different form elements work, you can customize this proposal to look exactly how you want it. I believe in you! Just don’t forget to click to click “Save” in the top right corner to save your work!

That’s everything for editing the Standard Package Proposal. Next, we’re going to edit the custom package proposal, so you can give your clients exactly what they need and still keep everything streamlined in Dubsado!

This example is called the Custom Package Proposal and like I said, it’s for those of you who do completely custom work for your clients or offer custom work from time to time. Use the link in the description to copy this proposal to your account first. Once you click on the link, you’ll click “Copy to Your Account” at the top!

Same thing as the previous example, change the name of the proposal first and then add your logo. Next, you’ll add in your custom package that you made from the Packages video earlier. And again, don’t forget to click that “Save” button in the top right corner. And that’s everything for editing the Custom Package Proposal! That was quick, right?

We’re coming up on the finish line soon and your Dubsado account is almost client-ready! We now have all of the pieces we need to start booking with Dubsado. Now, we just have to figure out how to get your proposal, contract, and invoice from Dubsado to your client. Come with me to the next video and I’ll show you how — I’ll see you there.

Dubsado is the all-in-one place to manage your clients and projects, but first, let’s define the difference between clients and projects. A client in Dubsado is considered the primary person you’re communicating with and a project is just a folder you keep everything in during the service you’re providing — like contracts, invoices, and emails. Log into your account and follow along to see how they work together!

Go to the tab that says Projects on the left to see the Projects page. On this page, projects are organized into 2 categories — leads and jobs. These “categories” are called project statuses. The “Lead” section is for projects that aren’t booked yet, and the “Jobs” section is for projects that are officially booked. If you put them in this section, they’ve probably signed a contract or paid an invoice already.

I’d like more context on where my leads are at in the booking process, so I’m going to click “Customize” on the right-hand side of the page and then “Add Status.” I’m going to title it “Pricing Sent” and add it as a new “Lead” status and press “Save”. Now I know if they’re in here, I’ve already responded and sent my pricing.

I’m going to make one more for “Contract Signed” and add it as a “Job” status. So I'll click Add Status >> Contract Signed >> Job status >> Save.

Now if we head back to the Projects Page, you’ll see that we have two custom statuses that tell us where the project is at in the client journey. You can make as many of these custom statuses as you want to — just remember they should be milestones reflecting where the client is at with you. Let’s update the sample project’s status to “Contract Signed” so you can see how it works!

Another status that is super important on this page is the “Archived” status. This is where you can put leads that have gone cold, or projects that you’re finished with. Just click on the down arrow on the right-hand side of the project, and click “Archive”. You can always unarchive projects if you need to as well.

So you've seen how to organize your projects, but what about making one? Don't worry, I’ve got you. Creating a new project manually is as simple as clicking this green “New Project” button on the right-hand side of the Projects page. The first thing we’ll do is title the project. When titling projects, I recommend including (1) what you’re doing for the client and (2) the client’s name or company name. So I’ll put “3 Month Coaching Program - Cameron McBeth”.

Next, we either assign a client we already have in the system to the project (like if you're working with the same clients over and over again) or we can create a new client. I’m going to assign the Sample Client to this project right now instead of making a new client, because remember — we made the Sample Client’s email our own.

The last thing is the status of the project. I’m going to set this project to “Pricing Sent” which is one of the statuses we just made! Some additional information you can enter are tags, notes, and project dates, but we’ll discuss those later. For now, let’s click create project.

Once a project is created, it opens up automatically. The project sidebar contains important info at a glance, including the main contract for the project and client profile. In the top left, we can edit the project title by clicking on it, or give the project a date by clicking "Set Date".

The tabs across the top are all the different ways we can communicate with the client.

First is the Emails tab, where we can draft a new email and see all of the past emails that have been sent out to the client. The Invoices tab is where we can create and manage invoices, the Forms tab is where we can add, edit, and send forms, the Appointments tab is for sending scheduling invites and seeing booked appointments, and the Workflows tab is where we can add in our workflows and see the process steps in action! Then there’s the Tasks tab for adding any tasks, and the Notes tab is great for adding notes that are for your eyes only. So anything that you don’t want your clients to see regarding the project can go here.

Project tags are a simple way for you to add more information about the project. Most of our users create tags to describe what services the client chose. For example, I’m going to add a tag to this project called “1:1 Coaching”. Other examples might be Wedding Photography, Logo Design, or whatever kinds of services you offer. You can add multiple tags to one project if you’d like. And remember the project statuses we created? You can update that here as well.

Now that you’re familiar with projects and clients, it’s time for the grand finale! We’re going to take everything that we’ve talked about in the last few videos and put them all together. In the next video, we’re going to send out a proposal, contract, and invoice in just one easy link. I hope you’re ready because your booking process is about to get a whole lot easier. I’ll see you in the next video.

Can we take a quick second to recognize the time and effort you’ve put into this so far? Do you feel like you’re about to be the most organized, professional, business person you know? If not, you should! This is the video where we take everything you’ve set up, mix it all together and seal the deal. By the end of it, not only will you feel confident with your booking process, but you’ll also understand the client experience side as well! If you haven’t yet, log in to your account and follow along with me. Let’s go!

Let’s head back to the proposal first. There’s just a few settings we need to adjust in order to include the contract and invoice. Click on the gear icon in the menu to the left. This is called the Form Settings tab.

Under the Proposal Options, toggle “Include Contract” to “Yes”, then choose the contract we put together. This is going to link your contract to this proposal so the client will select their package, submit this form, and then be taken straight to the contract. If you need your client to be able to choose multiple packages on the form, like if you have any add-ons, then you’ll set this toggle to “Yes” as well. If you’re just doing a custom package proposal with one package on there, then you can leave it as “No.”

Under the Invoice Options, set this toggle to “Yes” also, and then under the Payment Plan dropdown, choose the payment plan that we set up in the earlier video! You can always come back and make changes later, but just use the one we made for right now so you can see how it works. Now, after the client signs the contract, they can submit a payment to make the booking official. To lock this in, click “Save” in the top right corner. Now, head to Projects and choose the sample project. We’re finally going to send all of this out!

Now that we’re back in the sample project, let’s head to the Forms tab up top, and then click the dropdown. We’ll scroll down until we find our proposal template. I’m going to use the custom Web Design proposal for this example. When we click on it, a preview of the form will pop up.

When we click “Add”, what’s being added to this project is a copy of the base template. This is so that when we make changes to this form, it’s not going to change our main, base template in the Templates >> Forms area. And vice versa, if I make changes to my base template, it’s not going to change this copy that’s been added to the project.

You’ll also notice on the left-hand side, in the contract section, that our contract is now added to the project too. That’s because we linked it to this proposal. If you’re using a Standard Package Proposal, and you don’t need to make any edits, you can click “Send”. The email composer will pop up where we can choose to edit the email or leave it as-is, and then click “Send” and that’s it!

When we click “View” on the proposal, it’ll go right back to our Preview window. Instead of clicking “Send”, This time we’re going to click “Edit”. When it opens up, we’ll scroll down to where our custom package is and click on it. Over on the left-hand side, you’ll see the “Edit Package” option — do you see it? Click that. Now we can make customizations to this package based on what the client’s asking for. And remember, making these changes in here won’t affect the main package template!

So let’s say for this client, they want me to do 5 web pages for them, as well as SEO optimization and a logo redesign. We’ll click the down arrow next to the line item, and choose “Edit”. Now we can change the details in the description and then set the price to $5000. Then we’ll click “Save Item” at the bottom to save the invoice details, and then “Apply” at the top to apply our changes to the proposal. Now we can see that the package details and price updated on the proposal!

Then we’ll head up to the top, click the down arrow next to the “Save” button, and click “Save & Close”! This will take us back to the Forms tab in the project. Now we can click “Send” on this proposal to email it to the client. But instead of doing that, I want to show you a really easy way to see the client experience without emailing forms to yourself.

Click “View” to go back to our Preview window, then click “Copy Link” at the top to copy the URL. Then open up an Incognito window. If you’re using Safari, it’s called a Private window. Paste the URL into this new window. This is going to open up the proposal how the client sees it! Opening your proposal in a private window opens the “client view”. Otherwise, it will know you’re the business owner and show you the “business owner” view.

This is the seamless booking process Dubsado is so well known for! You can see the three tabs at the top: Proposal, Contract & Invoice all in one sequence. Once they finish one tab, it will take them to the next tab automatically for you! This is just a taste of what Dubsado can do for you when it comes to automating your client process.

We’ll scroll through this proposal, and you’ll notice that the customizations we made are showing here and the total is calculated at the bottom. Now as the client, I only have to click “Submit” at the bottom! Once we click “Submit”, it will take us to the contract where we can see the terms & conditions. Because we’re acting as the client right now, we’ll go ahead and initial in all the spots we need to. Do you see those invoice smart fields from the Contract video putting in the work for us and showing the package details? And because we added the payment plan to the proposal earlier, we can see the payment plan details laid out for us in the contract as well! Seriously, how cool is that?

I’m going to sign at the bottom in the client signature area, then click “Agree and Submit”. Because we also connected our invoice, it takes us directly to the invoice where we can see the custom package laid out for us and the payment plan at the bottom. If I’m the real client, I’d click on the first installment here to make a deposit, but because this is an example, I’m not trying to make that big of a payment right now.

As you can see, filling out a proposal, contract, and invoice in Dubsado is so simple for clients. No more sending 3 different links just so a client can book with you! And now that your templates are created and you use smart fields, you’re also going to save hours every week by not having to make a ton of edits! I can already hear the sweet notification sound coming in that you got a new booking!

Now, remember how I said that this was the finish line? Well, it technically is if you’d like to manually create your new projects every time using this “New Project” button on the Projects page. There’s a way to automatically put your leads into Dubsado when a client fills out your contact form and I’d love to share it with you before we wrap up this series!

In the next video, I’d like to introduce you to our Lead Capture Form. This is a contact form that you can embed on your website or link to your social media that when filled out, brings your new leads into Dubsado automatically. It sounds cool right? Let’s head over to the next video and I’ll show you!

Now that your booking process is faster and more seamless than ever, we want to give you one more amazing tool that you can use to speed up the process: the Lead Capture Form. Also known as an inquiry or contact form, the lead capture form is put on your website or shared on your social media profiles to capture leads and transfer them automatically into Dubsado.

Transferring client details manually is possible, as we talked about in the video on Projects & Clients, but it’s not ideal. Not only does it take a lot of extra time to transfer client details from one platform to another, it also leaves room for typos and human error in the process. So log into your account now, and let's take a look at the Lead Capture Form together!

Head to the Forms section under Templates, and look at the form all the way to the right. Just like the contract and proposal, there’s a template that already comes in your account that we can customize. Because this is where clients will officially inquire about your services or products, the three things that need to be collected on this form are First Name, Last Name and Email. That way Dubsado knows who the project belongs to. On our template, we already have those ready to go for you!

Just to give a quick recap on a few key form elements: Short Answers are great for brief, single-line responses. These are perfect for collecting things like First Name, Last Name and Email, as you can see here, or any other important contact information. Free Responses are a little bit longer. They’re more geared towards multi-line responses and paragraphs, like if you’re having clients tell you more about them and what they’re looking for. And you can also use Checkboxes if you are wanting the client to choose from a variety of different options you give them!

Now that your form is all ready to go, it’s time to embed it on your website or share it on your socials. Over on the left-hand side, you see this icon with the arrow on it? This is called the “Form Sharing” tab. If we click on it, it’ll give us two options for sharing this form. The first one is the embed code. All you have to do is click on the code to copy it, and then you can just paste it into a code block on your web builder — whether that’s SquareSpace, WordPress, ShowIt, or any other web builder you use.

The second way to share this is with the Direct Link URL. Same idea here. Click on the link to copy it, and then you can add this link literally anywhere. Your Instagram bio, Pinterest, Facebook, you can even text your link to a potential client. No matter which method you use, once a client fills out the form, Dubsado will automatically create a new project for you on your Projects page under the Lead section, so you can start communicating with them and send them your pricing like we just practiced! How cool is that?

Two quick things that I always make sure to mention when I’m talking about Lead Capture Forms though. The first thing is that, if you’re on a trial with us, remember you only have 3 free clients to start with. If you link this form to your Instagram and three leads fill out the form, then you won’t be able to collect any more leads after that. So make sure that you subscribe when you’ve used all of your free clients. We don’t want you to miss out on any leads, or more importantly, more booking opportunities! And the second thing is, if you’re on a Starter plan with us, you’re limited to just one active Lead Capture form at a time. To use different lead capture forms for different sites, events, and landing pages, do yourself a favor and bump your plan to Premier so you can have the perfect Lead Capture Form for the perfect spot.

Now I want you to picture this: your lead capture form is now in your Instagram bio. You wrap up your work with clients for the day, settle down for a movie with your family, and then you go to sleep. In the middle of the night, a client finds your Instagram and they’re sold on what you offer. They click the link in your bio and filled out your lead capture form. When you wake up, you log in to Dubsado and see their new project has already been created. You open the project and send your proposal, contract, and invoice in two minutes tops. Excited for your response, they quickly choose their package and submit the contract and invoice in just 6 minutes.

BOOM! A new client just like that. This is the power of Dubsado.

I want to personally congratulate you on this massive milestone — I don’t want you to take it lightly! You started this series brand new to Dubsado, unsure of how to even put your logo in. But you’ve ended this series confident in your booking process, comfortable in Dubsado, and taking the first step in automation.

If you thought the lead capture form creating projects for you automatically was a breath of fresh air, we can’t wait to see what you think about our schedulers and workflows. Now that you’ve got the basics down, your future in Dubsado will be full of finding easier ways to manage your clients, automate your work, and grow your business. Here’s what you can look forward to.

You’ve probably spent numerous hours emailing back and forth with clients trying to find a time to meet. The shortlist of time options you presented don’t work for them and vice versa, and before you know it, it’s taken 3 days just to get a date and time on the calendar.

This could all be solved with Dubsado’s built-in scheduling tool. You set your availability and clients choose the time that works best for their schedule. You can customize the appointment types you offer and how long they are. On top of that, the scheduler reads your connected calendar so you don’t have to worry about double booking! To take our scheduler to the next level, you can choose to require payment to book, as well as set up automated reminder emails so clients don’t forget about their meeting with you. Doesn’t booking appointments sound like a seamless dream now, instead of an admin nightmare?

Speaking of seamless, I would be doing you a huge disservice if I didn’t let you know about workflows. Workflows are the most powerful tool that Dubsado offers because they take the repetitive admin tasks off of your plate so you can focus on other important things — like spending time with your family or investing time back into your business.

When you create a workflow, you’re essentially pre-scheduling all of the backend work you do for your clients throughout their experience. Like sending check-in emails, important questionnaires, and more, except completely automated and not in a tracking sheet. Once you’ve applied a workflow to a client, you can leave the rest to us. We’ll send everything at just the right time.

Remembering where every client was at in your experience is easy when there are only 5-10 of them. When there are 20, 70, 100 clients, keeping a mental todo list results in dropping the ball every time. Workflows free up your time and energy to improve your services and make sure clients get everything they need. While we’re taking care of your current clients, you’re out there growing your business. And don’t get me started on getting back your work-life balance!

And lastly, here’s a few resources for you that will help you as you continue learning and using Dubsado! If you get stuck at any point, and I mean literally at any point, you can click on the little chat bubble in the bottom right-hand corner and talk to our Customer Care team! They’re here to answer your questions, troubleshoot any issues you’re having, and send you a fun GIF while doing so! You can also reach them through email at hello@dubsado.com.

When you’ve used up your 3 free clients (if you haven’t already) you can easily upgrade to the starter or premier Dubsado plan by going to Settings >> Billing >> Subscribe.

I want to thank you once again for hanging out with me in this series! I had a great time walking through everything with you. Welcome to your new, professional way of doing business. Welcome to Dubsado.