Can do
Read the catalogue
Customers, items, BOMs and routings (nested, we walk the tree), available stock, can-make, sales price breaks, custom fields, attachments.
Internal · meeting notes · 23/10/26
GHST KTCHN. Where we are.
The proposal they have had since 02/10, how it works, what Fulcrum can and cannot do, and what to get from today. The answer boxes save in this browser only.
What we offered
One office system from enquiry to aftercare, connected to Fulcrum for the floor. Fulcrum stays exactly as they are setting it up.
- Replaces Pipedrive, Assembly and the scattered chat (email, Teams, WhatsApp). Fulcrum, Xero and Shopify stay.
- A pipeline that moves itself: seven stages, almost all automatic, Pipedrive deals and history moved across.
- Customer profiles with many projects: one login, every build, quote, file and conversation.
- Living quotes from build templates priced on Fulcrum parts: fixed parts, choices, add-ons, versions, locked on acceptance.
- Contracts signed online with an audit trail, deposit paid in the portal.
- Customer portal: stages fed from Fulcrum, artwork uploads, CAD sign-off, messages split office / design / build, email that comes home.
- Chasing in the background: unopened quotes, unsigned contracts, missing artwork, change deadlines, milestone payments (auto invoice or Dani notified).
- Aftercare and warranty record for the life of the truck. WhatsApp into the portal as a later phase.
- Office and factory screens from the same live data.
- Website: Option A, an enquiry page plus sign-in on the existing site (included). Option B, a new ghstktchn.com telling the build story with the shop on shop.ghstktchn.com via Shopify's storefront API (at least a month extra).
The numbers on the live page
| Item | Price | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | £1,400 | Two weeks, fixed, invoiced up front, theirs to keep whatever they decide |
| The build | £3,000 a month | Monthly in advance, four-month minimum, then rolling with a month's notice. Hosting and support included, no set-up or per-user fees |
| Website option B | 1 month+ on top | Scoped once the spec is known |
| After the build | £399 a month | List £599; £399 for the first 12 months |
| Optional support | £600 a month | Monthly check-in, small changes, first call when something is wrong |
| Paid direct | Their accounts | Fulcrum, Xero, Shopify if kept, WhatsApp number and messages, domains |
The live page does not say plus VAT anywhere. The v2 draft did. Say it out loud before anyone writes a number down.
Phases on the page
| When | What goes live |
|---|---|
| Discovery, 2 weeks | Workshops, option and pricing map from Fulcrum, journey map, records, one template worked end to end, the plan with dates, delivered as an interactive page like the proposal |
| Months 1 to 3 | Customers, projects, pipeline, enquiries and instant replies, build templates and versioned quotes, contracts, files and design sign-off, portal, email in and out, Pipedrive and Assembly moved |
| Month 4 | Agreed builds into Fulcrum, progress back, chasing and payment milestones, aftercare tickets, office and factory screens |
| Later | WhatsApp, 3D configurator feeding quotes, AI drafting for approval, website rebuild if Option B |
How it works
A build, start to finish
Tagged by who does it. Everything not tagged team or customer happens on its own.
01customer
Enquiry
Smart enquiry on the site. Customer record and pipeline card created, instant reply in GHST's voice with a link to book a call.
02team
Ryan replies
The relationship stays personal. The customer books the discovery call; the card moves itself.
03team
Quote from a template
Pick Doughnut truck, swap the fryer, add an awning. Re-prices live from Fulcrum's parts and costs. Every change is a version.
04customer
Sign and deposit
Quote, contract, signature and deposit in the portal. That version locks.
05automatic
Into Fulcrum
The agreed build becomes a Fulcrum quote, then a sales order, left for production to approve and schedule. No re-keying.
06automatic
The build
Fulcrum's job progress mapped onto the customer stages GHST choose. Artwork, CAD and sign-offs on the project.
07team
Handover
Final checks, payment, handover documents, warranty starts from the ship date.
08customer
Aftercare
Issues via the portal (WhatsApp later), checked against warranty, booked, done, on the record.
Changes after signing are formal variations: a new version the customer approves, then a stage check. Not started yet means Fulcrum updates automatically; already built means production reviews first. Changes made on the floor come back as flags so the as-built record stays true.
Who owns what
| Thing | Us | Fulcrum |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiries, pipeline, follow-ups | Master | Never sees leads |
| Customers and projects | Master | Gets the customer at signing, linked by externalReferences |
| Build templates, options, names, photos, rules | Master | Supplies parts, costs, stock and BOMs as a read-only mirror |
| Quotes, versions, signed contract | Master | Receives the agreed version only |
| Sales order, jobs, schedule, shop floor | Reads status | Master |
| Invoices and Xero | Shows status and PDF | Master, native Xero sync. We never push to Xero or revenue double-counts |
| Files: artwork, CAD, contracts | Master (our storage) | Attached to the job where production needs them |
| Aftercare, warranty, service history | Master | Supplies the as-built record |
One home per fact. The other side holds a reference, never a copy it edits. Once our portal is live, Fulcrum's own customer portal gets switched off per customer so there is never two of anything.
Fulcrum: checked again this morning
Public OpenAPI spec re-fetched 23/10/26: 403 endpoints against 389 when we snapshotted it on 01/10. Nothing removed, every call the proposal relies on is still there.
Can do
Push the agreed build
Create a quote and convert it to a sales order, or a sales order directly, with per-line BOM swaps and deletes. Create jobs with auto-schedule. Our ids ride in externalReferences.
Can do
Read progress back
Job tracking gives previous, current, next and pending operations with times. Shipments and invoices readable with PDFs. That is the portal feed.
Cannot
Create shipments or invoices
Fulcrum raises them and syncs Xero itself. We display. Still true today.
Unknown
Webhooks, limits, sandbox
Webhooks exist in-app with id-only payloads and are not in the spec. No documented rate limits, no sandbox, one full-access static token, no scopes. Ask.
New since 01/10
Item unit cost and cost breakdown
New item-level costing endpoints. That closes the gap we had noted (no item cost rollup, only on quote lines). Seen in the spec today, untested.
New since 01/10
Quote lead times
Lead times and capable-to-promise on a quote: a promise date for the customer. Useful for the portal. Untested.
Still believed
Which Fulcrum
FulcrumPro (fulcrumpro.com), UK partner Langcroft. Confirm their login URL ends fulcrumpro.com. Fulcrum also ships an MCP server for AI assistants.
Risks to hold in mind
- Overlap. Fulcrum has its own quoting, a basic CRM, a customer portal and a Pipedrive integration. Expect 'just connect Pipedrive to Fulcrum'. Answer: that still leaves Assembly, chat and aftercare unjoined, and leaves them with two of everything.
- Their Fulcrum set-up is being decided now with Fulcrum's launch team. How trailers are modelled (a make-item per model with a nested BOM, or a configured line per order) decides how quoting works. The cheapest moment to influence it is before they finish. That is the case for starting discovery soon.
- Deposits. If the card deposit is taken in our portal it must be recorded against Fulcrum's sales-order deposit, never invoiced twice.
- The API moves weekly with behaviour changes in the changelog. We pin a dated client and smoke-test it, never float on latest.
- Without a second site we would be developing against their live system. Writes stay limited to the hand-off calls and every write is logged.
- No fixed price for the integration until three answers are in: API access on their plan, rate limits, a test site. Those are discovery outputs.
Their Pipedrive board, as they shared it
| Stage | Deals | Value |
|---|---|---|
| New enquiry | 3 | n/a |
| Contact made | 3 | n/a |
| Discovery call | 2 | £3,680 |
| Initial quote | 8 | £57,000 |
| Negotiation | 21 | £1,317,453 |
| Workshop visit | 1 | n/a |
| Hot and close | 7 | £386,723 |
| Verbal agreement | 3 | £292,734 |
| Contract signed | 1 | £81,468 |
| Deposit paid | 1 | £46,000 |
| Missed leads | 30 | £50,790 |
Over £1.3m sits in Negotiation and 30 leads went quiet. The line: it is never whether the work is there, it is whether anyone can see which deal needs a nudge today. They also took a £1m facility to ramp up (08/09), so the argument is throughput against debt service, not admin time saved.
If they ask
Short answers, same as the page.
Objection
Why not just link Pipedrive to Fulcrum?
It joins two of six tools and only moves a deal onto the floor. The customer still has no single login, no history across their builds, nowhere to upload artwork, no contract signed on the record and no aftercare trail. Assembly, email, Teams and WhatsApp stay unjoined and the quote is still a PDF. One system gives each customer a room with every project, quote version, file, signature and message in it.
Objection
Fulcrum has a portal and quoting
Built for the floor, not the customer's journey. We turn its portal off per customer once ours is live. One home per fact.
Objection
What if Fulcrum's API changes?
It does, weekly. Pinned client, changelog read monthly, smoke test before any regenerate. Already how we run Square and Kafoodle.
Trust
Who owns the data?
They own the site, options, prices, templates, workflows and all data, exportable in open formats. We own the platform underneath, which is why it costs what it does.
Timing
How fast?
Discovery two weeks. Months 1 to 3 the core. Month 4 the floor. Later WhatsApp, configurator, AI drafting, website rebuild.
Timing
Why now?
Their trailer model in Fulcrum is being decided this month. Decide it with quoting in mind and quoting is a month's work, not a rebuild.
To get from today
- Decision: yes to discovery? If not, what is in the way?
- Dates: half-day with Ryan; an hour each with Liam, Chloe, Dani, Rich; factory walk; a session with whoever is setting Fulcrum up.
- Fulcrum: login URL, plan, go-live date, who is setting it up (Langcroft?).
- Fulcrum: how are trailers modelled? A make-item per model with a nested BOM, or a configured line per order?
- Prices and margins: kept on Fulcrum items, or worked out in the quote today?
- Already connected to Fulcrum? Pipedrive, Xero, Shopify, CAD. Which CAD does Liam use?
- API access: included in their plan? Any fee? A second site or sandbox? Rate limits?
- Deposit: who takes it and how (card, bank transfer, Fulcrum invoice)?
- Website: Option A now, or Option B?
- Do they hold the .blend source for the 3D configurator?
- Objections heard.
- Agreed next step and date.
Notes
- Who was in the room
- What has changed since 02/10
- What Ryan said about Fulcrum progress
- Follow-ups I owe them
- Follow-ups they owe me