Proposing dates and replying

Every quote you send has to answer one question: when. Maelo gives you two answers and you choose per session, in the Scheduling step of the quote builder.

Offer dates means you pick the days and times and the client chooses from your shortlist. Client picks means you hand over your open availability and let them book whatever suits them. The switch sits at the top right of the scheduling panel, and Maelo describes the second one plainly: hand over your calendar, and the client sees your open availability and books the slot that suits them.

If you say nothing, a session goes out as Client picks. That is the right default for most work. Reach for Offer dates when you want control: a multi day piece that has to sit in a particular order, a client you want in early, or a guest spot with a hard window.

In Offer dates you get a month on the left and the times for whichever day you have open on the right. Tap days to add them, then tap the times you want to offer on each one. A number on a day tells you how many times you have offered there, and a running summary underneath keeps the total honest.

You can offer more than one time on the same day, and more than one day. The client only takes one of them, so being generous here shortens the back and forth. The footer shows your total as times and days, in your own timezone.

Days and times outside your working hours are shown but struck through. You can still pick one, and that is deliberate: offering a Sunday to one particular client is your call to make. + Custom lets you type any time at all when your normal slots do not fit.

Confirm scheduling moves you on to the review step. It stays greyed out until you have offered at least one time or set a session to Client picks. Any session you shortlisted but never put a time on goes out as awaiting schedule, and the button tells you how many before you send.

Once you send, the client gets an email with the times laid out and a Book Now button. Maelo checks the slot is still free at the moment they take it, so if you offered the same Saturday to two people, only the first one gets it. The request moves to Approved and sits in your Inbox until they pay.

Every request has its own message thread, so you never have to work out which DM belonged to which piece. Open the request, type in the box at the bottom and press Send. You can attach up to five images to a message, which is the fastest way to send a stencil or a rough for approval.

Next to the box is an Email client switch. Leave it on and your client gets an email nudge as well as the message in their hub. Turn it off and the message still lands in their hub, it just does not ping their inbox. Useful when you are sending three things in a row and do not want to spam them.

Unread replies show as a blue mail icon with a count on the request row. Click it to mark the thread read without opening it.

Nothing is set in stone until the deposit lands. Open the request and use the menu in its header. On a quote you have already sent you get two entries into the same editor.

• •Edit Dates takes you straight back to the calendar to re-offer times. This is the one you want when a client says none of those work.
• •Edit Quote opens the whole thing so you can change pricing, sessions and deposits as well.
• •Once a deposit is paid, those are replaced by Reschedule, which moves a real booking rather than a proposal.

Sending an updated quote pushes it out to the client again, so they always see the current version rather than the one in an old email.

A client can edit their own request after you have quoted them. When they do, the request jumps back to the top of your Inbox with an Updated tag, and the request itself lists exactly what changed, old value next to new.

Their payment is held until you look. That is the point: nobody should be able to swap a forearm piece for a full back and pay your original deposit for it. You get two buttons. Keep quote & re-confirm says the change does not affect the price and lets them carry on booking. Adjust quote opens the editor so you can re-price it.