Use this article when your business needs every committed estimate tied to a named customer, so a quote PDF, a forward status, or an order can never go out attributed to no one. After this, your team can still save drafts freely, but no one can generate a quote PDF, move an estimate to a committed status, or convert it to an order until a customer is selected.
Before you begin
This is a business-wide setting that applies to every user, not a per-user preference.
You need access to Estimate Setup to change General Settings.
It is off by default, so turning it on is the only thing that changes today's behavior, and only for estimates that have no customer.
Steps
1. Turn on the requirement
Open Estimate Setup, go to General Settings, and scroll to the System Settings card. Under the heading Require a customer to generate a quote PDF, change status, or convert to an order, tick the Require a customer checkbox.
The information icon beside the heading restates the rule: when on, you can still create and save estimates without a customer, but a customer must be selected to generate a quote PDF, move the estimate to a status like Waiting for response or Won, or convert it to an order.
Save the page, then reload it and confirm the checkbox reads back on. The requirement now applies to every user in your business.
2. Confirm the gate on a test estimate
Open or create an estimate and leave the Customer field empty. With the setting on you will see:
The Customer field shows a red asterisk and the helper text "Required to generate a quote PDF or convert to an order."
View PDF is disabled. Hovering it shows "Select a customer to generate a quote PDF."
Convert to order is disabled. Hovering it shows "Select a customer to convert this estimate to an order."
Picking a committed status (Waiting for response, Follow-up sent, Accepted, or Won) is refused: the Status field snaps back to its previous value and the Customer field shows "Select a customer before moving this estimate to Won." (the message names the status you picked).
Now select a customer in the Customer field. The asterisk and the messages clear, and all three actions unlock straight away.
What requires a customer when this is on
Three actions are blocked until a customer is selected on the estimate:
Generating a quote PDF (the View PDF action).
Moving the estimate to a committed status: Waiting for response, Follow-up sent, Accepted, or Won.
Converting the estimate to an order.
What still works without a customer
The requirement only takes effect at the point an estimate becomes customer-facing or committed. Everything else is untouched:
Saving an estimate always works, with or without a customer.
Editing line items, recalculating, and viewing the price breakdown are never blocked.
The Draft, Rejected, and Inbound request statuses are not gated, so the team can keep triaging work.
Things to know
The rule is enforced on the server as well as in the editor, so it also blocks direct API and integration calls that try to generate a PDF, set a committed status, or place an order without a customer. It is not just the buttons that are disabled.
It is per business, not per user. There is no per-individual override; turning it on applies to everyone who works on estimates for your business.
Estimates that already have a customer are unaffected. Only customer-less estimates ever see the asterisk, the helper, or a block.