Vinyl sits in on your client meetings and turns the conversation into a draft proposal in Socket. Finish the call, click Draft Proposal in Vinyl, and a draft appears in Socket ready for you to check over and send.
Under the bonnet this is the same AI proposal generation you can run inside Socket, so everything in Generating Proposals with AI in Socket about getting good results applies here. Vinyl just passes the meeting through for you, so there's no transcript to find and paste. To make Socket AI sound like your practice, set your tone of voice first.
As with Socket AI anywhere else, this only ever creates a draft. Nothing is sent to your client until you review and send it yourself, and Vinyl never runs on its own, you have to ask it to.
Proposals through Vinyl use your pricing menu
Vinyl works by matching what was discussed against the services on your pricing menu. It doesn't set prices and it doesn't add anything to your menu, so the more completely your menu covers the work you actually sell, with drivers set up properly, the more of the proposal comes back ready to go.
Before your first run, read down your pricing menu and check the services you talk about on discovery calls are all there and priced. Our Overview of Pricing Menus guide covers building it out, and tidy service names help the matching too.
Connecting Vinyl to Socket
The connection is made in Vinyl rather than in Socket, so you won't find it under your Socket integrations.
In Vinyl, go to Integrations, choose Socket and click Connect. You'll be asked to sign in to Socket to authorise it, which links the two accounts. Your Vinyl Master Admin may need to switch the Socket permission on in Vinyl's settings before the Draft Proposal option appears.
Vinyl's Socket Integration Overview covers the set-up in detail, including the permission toggle and what to do if Socket isn't showing on your Integrations page yet.
What's sent to Socket
A draft proposal, with the client and services filled in from the meeting. Vinyl:
Matches the client against your existing Socket clients, or creates a new client record if there's no match. Where the name closely matches a client you already have, it uses that record rather than risking a duplicate; if it's genuinely a different business sharing a name, you can say so at the review step.
Matches services against your pricing menu, and suggests relevant add-ons.
Brings contacts across with the client, where there's an email address to go with them. A name mentioned on a call without an email won't create a contact.
You'll get an Open in Socket link on the confirmation, which takes you straight to the draft.
Work that doesn't map to your pricing menu, a one-off bookkeeping migration for instance, comes through as an ad-hoc project with a written scope rather than being matched to the nearest thing on your menu.
Bear in mind an ad-hoc project on one proposal doesn't become a service in your pricing menu, so if it's something you sell regularly, add it to your menu properly and it'll be matched and priced automatically from then on.
Why the price in Vinyl looks lower than the price in Socket
The number on Vinyl's card is a guide to what was discussed, not the quote. Your Socket services are priced using drivers, things like the number of entities, employees, or transactions. Vinyl can't see those, so its review card shows the base price for each service, without VAT or currency applied. The real total is already worked out on the draft in Socket.
Before you send
A transcript captures what the client needs, but rarely the admin around it. Nobody says their company registration number out loud on a discovery call. So once the draft opens in Socket, a quick run through:
Check the services are the right ones, and that the drivers look sensible for that client
Read and price any ad-hoc projects
Check the right contacts are on the client, and add anyone who was missing an email address
Fill in missing client detail, like company reg and year end. Use the Companies House lookup if they're a limited company
Attach an engagement letter if you need one
Check the totals
You can adjust things in Vinyl up to the point you create the draft. After that, Socket is where changes happen, with your proposal wizard, engagement letter, design template, billing setup, and full pricing. Then send it as you would any other proposal; our Creating and Sending a Proposal guide covers the rest of the flow.
How the connection works
Vinyl connects through Socket's support for external AI tools, the same route Claude and ChatGPT use. There's nothing to install and no API keys to manage, you just sign in to authorise it. See Connecting AI Assistants to Socket (MCP) if you want to connect other tools.
Questions or feedback?
If something doesn't work the way you expected, or you've got an idea that would make it more useful, message us via the chat icon in Socket.