Before You Start

This guide assumes you have an active Ignition subscription and administrative access. Basic knowledge of your service offerings and pricing structure is helpful.

Overview

40 min
Setup Time
Intermediate
Difficulty
Quarterly
Maintenance

What You’ll Learn

  • How to structure your service library for efficient proposals
  • Creating legally compliant digital engagement letters
  • Automating upfront and recurring client payment collection
  • Streamlining client acceptance and onboarding workflows

1. Preparation Steps

Before designing your first proposal, ensure these elements are ready:

Required for Ignition

  • Detailed Service Descriptions & Pricing
  • Connected Payment Gateway (Stripe, GoCardless)
  • Bank Account for Payouts
  • Standard Legal Terms for Engagement Letters

Recommended for Optimization

  • Branded Templates & Logos
  • Pre-defined Workflow Automation Rules
  • Team Roles & Permissions
  • Client Relationship Management (CRM) Integration

2. Understanding Ignition’s Core Features

Ignition unifies several critical aspects of client engagement to reduce manual overhead.

Feature A: Professional Proposals & E-Signatures

This feature allows you to create branded proposals that clients can sign digitally.

Pros:
  • Consistent branding & professionalism.
  • Secure, legally binding e-signatures.
  • Fast client acceptance process.
Cons:
  • Initial template setup time.
  • Requires clear service definitions.
  • Customization can be limited for highly complex contracts.

Feature B: Automated Payments & Engagement Letters

Beyond proposals, Ignition integrates engagement letters and payment collection directly.

Expert Tip: Leverage Ignition’s automated payment collection feature to secure upfront payments and establish recurring billing for ongoing services. This significantly improves cash flow and reduces administrative effort in chasing invoices.

3. Step-by-Step: Building Your First Engagement

Here’s a high-level workflow for creating and sending a client engagement in Ignition.

When you create a proposal in Ignition, it encapsulates the services, pricing, engagement letter, and payment schedule into a single, cohesive client experience. The system then automates sending, tracking, and onboarding tasks once accepted.

Here is a sample code block to show how a proposal structure might be represented internally.

{
  "proposal_id": "IGN-2025-001",
  "client_name": "Acme Corp",
  "services": [
    {
      "name": "Monthly Bookkeeping",
      "price": 500.00,
      "billing_frequency": "monthly"
    },
    {
      "name": "Annual Tax Filing",
      "price": 1200.00,
      "billing_frequency": "annually"
    }
  ],
  "engagement_letter_version": "v3.1",
  "payment_terms": {
    "upfront_deposit": 250.00,
    "recurring_start_date": "2025-11-01"
  }
}

4. Setting Up Ignition

  1. 1

    Build Your Service Library

    Define all your services, descriptions, pricing, and associated tasks. This forms the building blocks of your proposals.

  2. 2

    Connect Payment Gateway

    Integrate with Stripe or GoCardless to enable automated payment collection directly from signed proposals.

  3. 3

    Design Proposal Templates

    Create reusable templates for different service packages, ensuring consistent branding and messaging.

  4. 4

    Integrate Engagement Letters

    Upload your legal terms and engagement letters, linking them to your service offerings within Ignition.

Common Error: Incomplete Service Details

Ensure every service in your library has a clear description, pricing model (fixed, hourly, recurring), and associated legal clauses. Gaps here can halt proposal generation or lead to client confusion.

5. Testing Your Workflow

Test Proposal Checklist

  • Send a test proposal to yourself or a colleague
  • Verify the engagement letter signs correctly
  • Confirm payment is processed via the connected gateway
  • Check that the client portal reflects the accepted agreement

Need Help?

Get Support

Having trouble setting up your Ignition workflow or optimizing your proposals? Our team specializes in practice management automation.

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