Templates & form styles
Two different things with confusingly similar names, so start here:
- A template is the words — default notes, terms and conditions, and for contracts the body of the agreement itself.
- A form style is the look — layout, logo, colors, which sections print, and the language the document is written in.
One customer-facing document uses one of each.
Templates
Settings → Catalog → Templates, or Templates in the sidebar. There are three kinds — Contract, Estimate and Invoice — and each is filed under a category (General, Lawn Care, Snow Removal, Landscaping, Maintenance, Hardscaping, One-Time, Recurring, Seasonal, Custom).
For estimates and invoices, a template carries Default Notes and Default Terms & Conditions, which pre-fill those fields on any new document that uses it. That’s most of the value: the terms you argued over once, applied every time without retyping.
For contracts, the template also holds the agreement body, built in the editor with merge fields for customer name, property, price and dates. Insert them with Show Fields; they appear as bracketed chips like [Customer Name] and fill in when the contract is generated.
Insert merge fields from Show Fields rather than typing brackets from
memory. A label the app doesn’t recognise is left exactly as you typed it —
so [Client's Name] reaches your customer as the literal text
[Client's Name] in a contract they’re being asked to sign. The picker can
only give you labels that resolve.
Clone an existing template rather than starting blank when you want a variant. Version History keeps prior revisions, which matters when a contract’s wording changes and you need to know what last year’s signer agreed to.
Form styles
Form Styles in the sidebar, or Settings → Catalog → Templates. Each style is for Invoice, Estimate or Contract, and one per type is the default.
The builder is a live canvas with an inspector, organised in tabs:
- Design — logo, colors, fonts
- Layout — page structure
- Sections — what appears and in what order
- Content — headings and labels
- Emails — the message the document is sent with
The form style builder needs a tablet or desktop. On a phone it tells you so rather than offering a canvas you can’t use.
Document language lives on the form style
Each style is saved as English, Español, or Bilingual, and that is what your customer receives.
The Preview language control at the top only changes what you’re looking at. A banner appears whenever the two differ, with Make this the default if you meant to change it for real.
This trips people up. Previewing in Spanish does not send in Spanish. If your Spanish-speaking customers should get Spanish documents, save a style whose default is Español and use it for them.
Using them
Pick the template when you create the document
Notes and terms arrive pre-filled. Edit freely — you’re editing this document, not the template.
Pick the form style in the billing studio
Switch template in the top bar. The preview updates immediately.
Send
Tips
- Set your defaults once and stop thinking about them. Most businesses need one invoice style, one estimate style, and two or three contract templates.
- Editing a template does not rewrite documents already sent. They keep the wording they went out with — which is what you want when someone signed it.