10 Cool Dubsado Features (You May Not Know About)

By Ema Katiraee, Certified Dubsado Specialist

Dubsado has some really amazing features that you already know about. But there are also some features that are a bit more hidden you may not know about.

Some of these features I only learned after using Dubsado for some time - so I’m pretty sure there’s at least one feature in this list that will be new for you.

I'll take you through some of my top 10 favorite more hidden features in this blog post.

---

1- Add notes to invoices

Are you getting paid through payment processors outside of Stripe, Square or PayPal?

You can add a note to your invoices letting people know how to pay you through other methods like e-transfer, Venmo or Zelle. This will save you having to email this info separately.

You can also use this area to add information like your tax information or anything else that is relevant on your invoices.

To add a note to your invoices in Dubsado, go to your Settings

1. Go to Invoice appearance

2. Scroll down to Invoice terms

3. Add any note(s) at the top or bottom of your invoices

4. Click Save

2- Custom Mapped fields

There are two types of custom mapped fields in Dubsado: client and project mapped fields.

Custom client fields are information that will remain in the client profile and follow the client across all their projects.

Custom project fields are information that are project specific - they are attached to a single project in Dubsado for a specific client.

You can create custom mapped fields in Dubsado and then map (or connect) them to short answers in a form.

Some examples of custom mapped fields are:

• Social media links (custom client field) - the answer will show up in their client profile.

• Number of guests (custom project field) - the number provided will show up in the clients project for easy reference.

• Referral (custom client field) - when someone fill this form field in the lead capture form, it lets me know who referred them. I can easily see the answer in their project and thank that person. No need to open the lead capture form to find the information.

You can also add information into custom mapped field manually directly in their project or profile.

The best part is that custom mapped fields will auto-populate into emails or forms when you use the smart field that references them.

To create a custom mapped field in Dubsado, go to Settings

1. Go to Custom fields

2. Click + New client field or + New project field

3. Add the name of the mapped field you want to create and select the field type: Short answer for text answers or Date for date types

4. Click Create

5. When you’re in a form or an email, you can pull the smart field for this custom mapped field from the Smart fields list, under Project or Client depending on the type. Just know that you need to scroll to the very bottom of the list to find it.

Create your Custom Mapped Field in Dubsado

Add your Custom Mapped Field to a Dubsado form

Once the form is submitted, you can see the answer in the clients project details

3- Change form types

If you accidentally created a form as a lead capture and it was supposed to be a questionnaire, no problem. In the forms tab, click the 3 dots beside the form settings, click Change Form Type and select the form type you’d like to switch it over to.

What?!?! 🤯 This one blew my mind when I found out it was possible.

This means that if you have a proposal template in your account your really like - you can create a copy of it and change the form type of the copy to a contract or questionnaires to use the design elements and create matching forms.

Just make sure that you’re adding the right elements and removing certain elements depending on where you’re dragging it to/from.

Example: if dragging a proposal over to a contract column, add the signature fields and remove the package elements.

Change the form type in Dubsado by simply selecting from the dropdown menu

---

4- Add expiration dates to forms

This is exactly what it sounds like, it adds an expiration date to your forms so they can no longer be submitted after a certain date.

You can set the expiration date in several ways:

• Relative: you can set the form to expire based on specific triggers: X days before or after project start, X days before or after project end, or X days after applied to project.

• Fixed: You set a fixed expiration date for all clients using this form.

• No expiration: no expiration date is set, meaning that this form can be submitted anytime in the future if the project is still live.

Why use this feature?

• To avoid people submitting a proposal months later - your prices may have changed, your offer may have changed so you want to set a time limit in case things change in your business.

• To help people make a decision - I don’t like pressure tactics, but it’s also important to set a deadline to help people come to a decision around working with you. It’s not fun to be in a state of uncertainty, and this helps put an end to that.

---

5- Customize the preview title and image for your Dubsado forms and portal

You can change the title and appearance when sharing links to Dubsado forms and client portal. This is the information that will appear in the browser or when you share the links on social media.

If you don’t change the title and description, the default title will say “Dubsado CRM for Creatives”. The description will read: “Dubsado, client management refined for the creative entrepreneur”. And it will have no social image or favicon.

That description can be a bit confusing for everyone, so if you haven't already, go ahead and update it.

To update the title and images, go to your Settings → URL customization → scroll down to the URL Meta details section.

You can change the following settings:

1. Browser Tab Title: this is the title that shows up in a browser (hover over any open browser tab to see) or when the link is shared on social media. Keep the page title between 30-60 characters.

2. Social media preview description: this is the preview text that will show up under the title when the link is shared on social media. It’s the same for all your Dubsado links, so use a general description between 55-200 characters.

3. Browser tab favicon: this is the tiny logo that you see in your browser bar. It’s helps quickly identify which browser tab has your link in it. It’s usually a small or simplified version of your logo. Make sure your favicon has a transparent background before uploading it.

4. Social media preview Image: this is the image that is displayed when you share a link on social media. The recommended image ratio for a social preview image is 1.91:1, the optimal size would be 1200 px x 630 px. When creating this image, keep in mind that sometimes it gets cropped into a square.

---

6- Customize project views

Customize your project views as a table or as a Kanban-style board, whichever way you like to work best. Decide what you’d like to group by, and which properties to display or hide.

You can group by: No grouping, status, client, project source, assigned to or by tags.

You can display or hide the following: Project title, contact name, status, contract status, workflow status, amount paid, project date, assigned to, tags, project source or created date.

You can also change how you sort projects: by name (ascending or descending), client name (ascending or descending), project date (oldest to newest, or newest to oldest), or created date (oldest to newest, or newest to oldest).

Whether you prefer a quick, scannable table or a visual, drag-and-drop board, Dubsado lets you organize your projects exactly the way that makes sense for how you work.

Dubsado Project Board View

Dubsado Project Table View

---

7- Redirect URL for schedulers and forms

Add a redirect URL to your forms or schedulers to send your audience to another page after they submit.

You can redirect to a page on your website that is relevant, or even create a special thank you page where you can embed a video or insert instructions that they need to know about.

To add a redirect URL to a public proposal or lead capture form in Dubsado:

1. Go to the form Settings

2. Under Redirect URL insert the full link you’d like to redirect people to

To add a redirect URL to a scheduler in Dubsado:

1. Go to the Advanced settings of your scheduler

2. Scroll down to Redirect to URL and insert the full link you’d like to redirect people to

8- Add buffer times to appointments

If your meetings are happening back to back and you feel like you’re scrambling a bit, add a buffer to your appointments in the Dubsado scheduler.

This will help spread out your meetings and help you avoid meeting overlaps in case a meeting goes long.

To add buffers to your appointment schedulers in Dubsado:

1. Go to the Advanced settings of your scheduler

2. Click to expand the Limits section

3. Under Buffer time before event and Buffer time after event and the buffer time you’d like to use for each one. Click to toggle between minutes and hours. You don’t have to use both, but definitely can.

---

9- Add an external link to your to client portal

You can add external links to the portal for your clients to check out.

This allows you to share links like a Loom video, YouTube video, gallery link, etc. with your clients directly in their portal.

To add an external link to you clients project:

1. Go to their project, then go to the Forms tab

2. Click + Add a Form

3. When the pop-up appears, click + New form

4. Click Start from scratch instead → select Link → Create form

5. Add the title of the link and the URL

6. Click Create

7. Once it’s created, click Share → Apply to portal

First, create the External Link

Then add the link to the Client Portal

---

10- Enable or disable autopay on payment plans

With the new autopay changes in Dubsado, you can decide if autopay is disabled, is optional or required for different payment plans you use.

This is great because it adds flexibility and allows you to decide when autopay is needed in your business.

To change the autopay settings for a specific payment plan:

1. Go to the Invoicing tab → Payment Plans

2. For the payment plan you want to edit, click Edit on the autopay setting

3. Decide which option you’d like to use: disabled, optional or required.

You can also toggle on Follow brand settings, which will revert the autopay setting for this payment plan back to the main option selected in the Dubsado brand settings.

---

Bonus - Add Emojis to your Project Statuses

I add emojis to my project statuses because as a visual person, it helps me quickly understand which project status I’m looking at and avoid mixing things up.

Some examples:

• 📅 Discovery Call Booked

• ⏳ In Progress

• ✔️ Complete

Cool, huh?

---

What would your client experience look like if it actually ran itself?

Take the free quiz to find out what your setup is missing and where to start.

Take the quiz

---

Need help setting up Dubsado for your business?

If you need help setting up Dubsado for your business and want an expert to help you, I’m here to help.

Book a free, no-strings attached discovery call and see if a Dubsado setup is right for your business 👉 Schedule your call