Handling Project Requests

When somebody fills in the enquiry form on your website asking you to quote for a job, their brief arrives here rather than in your email.

Each one carries what they told you: who they are, what they want, roughly what they can spend, when they need it, and anything they attached.

Reading a brief

Open one to see everything they sent — their answers question by question, any design preferences, and their files.

Files open through a link that expires after a short while. That is deliberate: a brief often contains somebody's plans, brand assets or private documents, and a link that works for ever is a link that works for whoever finds it later.

Being told about it

You get an email as soon as a brief arrives, so you do not have to keep checking. Replying to that email replies to the person who sent the brief.

Moving it along

Every brief has a status, and you set it:

• New — it has arrived and you have not looked yet
• Reviewing — you are working out what to quote
• Quoted — you have sent them a price
• Won — they said yes
• Lost — they did not go ahead

Nothing moves it for you. The point is being able to open the list and see what is still waiting on you rather than trying to remember.

Budget and estimate

If your form asks for a budget, it shows as a band — what they can spend, which is a different question from what you will charge.

If your site works out an estimate as they fill the form in, that appears too, with any breakdown it produced. It is what your own site calculated, not a quote you have committed to.

Deposits

If you ask for a deposit up front, the brief records that you asked and whether it has been paid.

The money goes through your own payment account, not through us. Helm records that it landed so you can see it beside the brief; it never handles the payment itself and never sees your keys.

When a deposit clears, you get an email and so does the person who paid it.

Where they come from

Briefs arrive from the enquiry form on your own website. If you would like that form changed — different questions, a different budget range — that is a change to your site rather than something you set here.