The quote lifecycle explained

Follow a quote from first draft to signed agreement, and see where your Studio configuration shapes each stage.

Overview

A quote in Quotivity moves through a predictable set of stages: a rep builds it, your rules and settings shape it, it clears any approval gate, it publishes and renders as a branded document, and the buyer reviews, accepts, and — if you use it — signs. Almost everything you configure in Quotivity Studio plays out somewhere along this path. Knowing the stages helps you predict how a change to a rule, a price book, or a setting will affect what reps and buyers actually experience.

The stages

1. Create or update the quote

A rep starts a quote on a deal in Quote Builder and adds products. Every time they add or change something, the quote is recalculated. Your Price Books set the prices the moment a product lands on the quote, and your Quote Builder settings decide things like which line item columns the rep sees and how the deal amount is calculated. On multi-currency HubSpot portals, Deal Currency must be set on the deal before create — see Deal currency and multi-currency portals.

For accounts using deferred HubSpot sync, a lightning bolt beside the autosave message shows how Quotivity writes to HubSpot. Grey means Quotivity is updating HubSpot in real time. Light blue means deferred sync is active and changes have not reached HubSpot yet (autosave or background rules may still be finishing); green means the quote is fully synced. A rep can click the light blue bolt to sync immediately after autosave and background rule work finish.

2. Rules run

Each time the quote changes, your Quote Rules run. Some rules act immediately — blocking the quote, showing a notification, prompting the rep for input, or flagging the quote for approval. Others quietly do work in the background, like adding line items, applying discounts, or keeping line item properties in sync. See How Quote Rules work.

3. Background work

When a rule needs to change the quote — adding products, expanding a bundle, updating line item properties — that work runs in the background just after the quote is evaluated. The rep sees the quote settle into its final shape: items appear, discounts apply, and bundles fill in. This keeps the builder responsive while still applying everything your rules call for.

If the quote is deleted in HubSpot while that background work is still running (for example another user removed it), Quote Builder stops the update, shows that the quote no longer exists, and does not keep retrying. The rep should close the builder and open or create the quote again from the deal.

4. Validation (when configured)

If a Require Validation rule matches, the rep submits for validation before approval or publish. Quotivity sets the quote to Validation Pending for a named Validation Operation, your HubSpot workflow finishes the check, then Submit Quote continues — possibly into another validation, into approval, or straight to publish. See Requiring validation and Setting up validation workflows.

5. The approval gate

When the rep submits the quote (or after validation completes), Quotivity checks whether any rule requires approval. If one does, the quote moves to Pending approval and waits for a designated approver to approve or reject it. A rejection clears the approval state so the rep can revise and resubmit. If no approval is required, the quote skips straight ahead. See How approvals work.

6. Publish

Once a quote is approved — or if no approval was needed — it publishes. At this point Quotivity syncs the final line items, discounts, and deal amount back to the HubSpot deal so your CRM stays accurate, and it records an audit trail of what happened.

7. Render the document

After publishing, Quotivity renders the quote as a branded HTML page and a PDF, using the Quote Template and Terms you configured. This is the document the buyer sees and downloads.

8. Buyer finalization

The published quote gives the buyer a secure link. The buyer reviews it, chooses whether to include any optional line items, fills in any requested details, and accepts. If you’ve enabled quote payments, this is where the buyer can pay. Their selections are recorded and the quote is finalized.

9. Optional e-signature

If e-signature is turned on, the signing flow begins once the finalized PDF is ready. The buyer — and any countersigners on your side — sign, and Quotivity stores the signed document. See How e-signature works.

10. Complete

With finalization (and signing, if used) done, the quote reaches its final published state. The deal reflects the agreed amount, the document is stored, and the deal can move forward to close.

Why this matters for admins

Most of what you do in Studio takes effect at a specific stage:

Price Books and Quote Builder settings shape stages 1–3, as the rep builds.
Quote Rules drive stages 2–5 — what gets added, blocked, validated, or sent for approval.
Quote Templates and Terms shape stage 7, the rendered document.
Approvals and e-signature govern stages 5 and 9, the gates around sending and signing.
Quote emails let reps share a published quote from their own Gmail or Microsoft mailbox after stage 6 — see How quote emails work.

When something looks off, work out which stage it belongs to and start with the configuration that owns that stage.

Deal currency and multi-currency portals

Quote currency is set from the HubSpot deal when the quote is created, and it can’t be edited afterward in Quote Builder.

On multi-currency HubSpot portals, the deal must have Deal Currency set before a quote can be created. Otherwise Quotivity blocks create so the quote isn’t stamped with a fallback currency.
If the quote’s currency later differs from the deal’s Deal Currency (for example, the deal currency was changed after create), Quote Builder locks edits and publish. HubSpot also rejects status changes in that case. Change the deal currency back to match the quote, or recreate the quote after the deal currency is correct.