Inquiry-to-invoice automation for a creative studio

Deliverables

• Inbox monitoring with lead parsing and a duplicate check in Scoro
• Auto-reply with a discovery call booking link
• Cost calculation and proposal creation in Scoro
• Approval trigger that sends the proposal and logs it
• Contract-signed flow with deposit or full invoices in Xero
• Scheduled follow-ups for unsigned proposals

The challenge

For a studio, the admin between a first email and a paid deposit is easy to underestimate: replying quickly, booking a call, pricing the job, writing the proposal, chasing a signature, raising the right invoice and starting the project. Each handoff is a chance for a lead to go cold or for an invoice to go out with the wrong terms, and proposals that never get signed tend to be forgotten.

Our approach

The workflow runs in five stages. First, n8n monitors the inquiry inbox, filters for new inquiries, parses the lead's details and checks Scoro for an existing record, then creates or updates the lead. The lead gets an auto-reply with a link to book a discovery call, and the team gets a notification. Second, after the call a form posts to a webhook; n8n pulls rates from a cost calculator sheet, calculates the project cost in code, generates the proposal content, creates the proposal in Scoro, updates the lead status and tells the team it is ready for review. Third, approving the proposal fires a trigger that fetches it, prepares the email, sends it to the client, marks it as sent and records it in an Airtable tracking table. Fourth, when Scoro reports a signed contract, n8n works out the payment terms and creates either a 50% deposit invoice or a full payment invoice in Xero, updates the status, sends the kickoff email and alerts the team when a deposit invoice has gone out. Fifth, a scheduled check every 6 hours finds unsigned proposals and sends 2-day, 7-day and quarterly follow-ups, updating the tracking record after each one.