The job flow — from email to invoice

A job is never just one screen. It's an email that lands, a price that has to come out right, an approval, a production floor, a folder full of files, and an invoice at the end. PressCal is built to run that whole path in one place — without retyping the same details into five different programs.

Let's walk it with a real job: Coffee & Bean emails you on a Friday morning — "we need 1,000 business cards, 9×5 cm on 350gsm, matte lamination, file attached."

1. The request arrives by email

Open the Emails page — your Gmail, inside PressCal. The sender is matched to a contact or company automatically; if it's a new customer, the contact practically creates itself. The PDF with the cards is attached to the message and will follow the job the whole way through.

2. From email to quote

Hit New Quote from this email (or From Email on the quotes page). The AI reads the request and lays the details out in a form: quantity 1,000, size 9×5, 350gsm stock, matte lamination. You just check them — anything the email doesn't say is left blank for you to fill in, not guessed. The email is now tied to the quote: attachments are saved into its files, and when the customer replies on the same thread, the reply links up automatically.

3. Costing

Time for the price. In Costing you pick the machine and the paper, enter 9×5 with its bleed and 1,000 copies. The imposition builds itself: you see on the canvas how many cards fit on the sheet, how many sheets you'll burn, how many clicks — or plates, if you go offset. Tick matte lamination and the charge drops in on its own, using the rates you set up in Postpress. On the right, the full breakdown: paper, printing, finishing, profit, selling price. Not sure whether digital or offset wins at 1,000? Try both machines — it's two clicks. Save, and the costing becomes a line on the quote.

4. The quote goes out

Click Send, fill in the recipient and a couple of lines, and the email goes out from your own Gmail — the customer sees your address. They get a table of items and prices, an attached PDF, and an accept button. The quote flips to Sent, and you know where it stands at any moment.

5. The customer approves online

No more "did you see my quote?" phone calls. The customer opens the link, ticks what they want, and accepts. Approve everything and the quote goes to Approved; keep only some items and it's Partial. You're notified immediately — and the job moves onto the job board by itself. If they ask for changes, you create a revision of the quote without losing the history.

6. On the production floor

In Jobs the work is now a card on a kanban board, with the production stages as columns: Files → Printing → Cutting → Finishing → Delivery. Drag it along as the job moves: check the PDF in Files, print, guillotine, matte lamination, and finally delivery — with a courier voucher straight from the job, if you've set up a courier. Colour-coded priorities and deadlines on every card, so one glance at the board tells the whole shop what's going on.

7. The job folder

If you run PressKit (the free desktop app), approval automatically creates a folder on your computer: {Company}/{Quote number} - {Title}. The customer's attachments download into it with one click, and the finished imposition PDF for the press exports to the same place. No more "where did I save that?" at three in the afternoon.

8. Invoice and close

Cards delivered — the paperwork is left. With Elorus connected (Settings → Integrations), you press the invoicing button right on the quote and the invoice is created in Elorus with the quote's customer and amounts — nothing gets retyped. Not on Elorus? Hit Print and get a clean PDF of the quote for your bookkeeping. Finally, Complete: the job is archived and PressKit moves the folder into _01 Archive — clean disk, clean board.

That's the whole path. The email, the price, the approval, the production, the files and the invoice don't live in five programs — it's the same job, just changing stage.