Quotation
*A quote is the approximate price of goods or services you plan to provide to a potential or existing customer.*
In the negotiation of sales, customers usually ask for a detailed description of your suggested goods or services, prices, deliverables, and terms of engagement. This document—a proposal, estimate, pro forma invoice, or quotation—is an important sales milestone, which is transparent and sets expectations prior to finalizing an order.
To access the Quotation list, go to:
A typical sales flow looks like:
A Quotation contains details about:
The addressee of the quotation.
The items and quantities you are offering.
The rates at which they are being offered.
Taxes that apply.
Other fees (such as shipping and insurance), if applicable.
Validity of the contract.
The time of delivery.
Other conditions.
1. Prerequisites
Before creating and using a quotation, we suggest that you prepare the following in advance:
2. How to create a Quotation
Go to the quotation list and select New.
Select whether the quotation is to a lead or a customer from the 'Quotation To' field.
Enter customer/lead name.
Enter a valid till date on which the quoted amount will be considered invalid.
Order type may be sales, maintenance, or shopping cart. Shopping Cart is for web shopping carts and should not be constructed from here.
Add the items and quantities in the items table; prices will be auto-retrieved from Item Price. You may also retrieve items from an opportunity by clicking on Get Items from > Opportunity.
Include extra charges and taxes as necessary.
Save.
You can also create a Quotation from an Opportunity shown as follows.
3. Features
3.1 Address and Contact
In this section there are four fields:
Customer Address: This is the Billing address of the customer.
Shipping Address: Where the goods are to be delivered
Contact Person: If the customer of yours is an organization, then you can mention the person to contact here.
Territory: Where the customer is. The default is All Territories.
3.2 Currency and Price List
You may set transaction currency for quotations and sales orders. When there is a related pricing list assigned, the system automatically applies item prices by using the pre-assigned list. Through the application of the 'Ignore Pricing Rule' feature, you are able to ignore custom pricing rules defined under Accounts > Pricing Rule. Read about Price List and Multi Currency Transactions to know more.
3.3 The Items Table
You can expand this table by clicking on the inverted triangle located rightmost of the table.
When you choose the item code, the system will automatically retrieve the following details: item name, description, item image (if uploaded), default quantity (defaulted to 1), and rates. You can enter discounts in the Discounts & Margin section.
In the Discount and Margin section, you may add an additional margin for gain or give a discount. Both can be set as a fixed amount or percentage. The final rate will show in the rate section below. You may also set an item tax template with a reference to a specific item.
* The item weight* will autopopulate if set beforehand in the item master.
In Under Warehouse and Reference, the system retrieves the warehouse information from the Item Master, showing the stock location where the inventory is kept.
Under Planning, you can see both the projected quantity and actual quantity of the item. For more detailed descriptions of these fields, click here. Clicking on the 'Stock Balance' button takes you to a stock report for the chosen item.
The Shopping Cart Additional Notes field can be utilized on website transactions with item-specific directions (e.g., "Make food extra spicy") when ordered through a web cart. The functionality was introduced in Version 12.
Page break forces the next page to occur before this item when documents are printed.
Rows below/above can be inserted, duplicated, moved, or removed within this table.
Tip: Alternatively, download the items table in CSV format and upload it to another transaction. The total amount, rate, and net weight of all the items will be displayed below the item table. The rate here is pre-tax.
3.4 Taxes and Charges
You can add taxes to your quote by either choosing a pre-set Sales Tax Charges Template or manually adding tax information in the Taxes & Charges Table. All tax amounts will automatically be updated in your document total.
The system will automatically calculate and show the total tax amount below the item table. For a detailed breakdown, choose View Tax Breakdown to show all individual tax components with their corresponding calculated amounts.
To add taxes automatically via a tax category, visit this page.
Shipping Rule
A shipping rule determines the shipping cost for an item based on delivery distance. Generally, the higher the distance, the higher the rate. For detailed pricing plans, see the Shipping Rule setup page.
3.5 Additional Discount
Along with per-product discounts, you can also give a bulk discount to the overall quotation. This discount can be given on either the grand total (after tax/charges) or the net total (before tax/charges). The discount can be specified as a fixed amount or as a percentage of the chosen total.
Read Applying Discount for more details.
3.6 Payment Terms
Payments can be divided into partial installments as per the agreed terms. For instance, 50% could be paid upfront as an advance payment, with the remaining 50% payable on delivery or upon completion of service. You have the option of assigning a predefined payment terms template or manually establishing custom payment terms in this field.
Read Payment Terms to know more.
3.7 Terms and Conditions
Sales and purchase transactions can encompass supplier-specific terms and conditions (T&C) for the supply of goods or services. These T&Cs will be applicable to transactions and will automatically be included on printed invoices, orders, or receipts. For information on setting up Terms and Conditions, see the T&C setup guide click here.
3.8 Print Settings
Letterhead
You can produce quotations and orders for sale directly on your own company's branded letterhead to provide a professional look. Get more information about customizing letterhead here.
Enable the 'Group Identical Items' setting in order to group duplicate line items in the products table to keep printed reports neat.
Print Headings
Quotations may also be tagged as 'Preforma Invoice' or 'Proposal' using the corresponding print heading. For setting up personalized print headings, go to: Home > Settings > Printing > Print Heading know more here.
3.9 More Information
Campaign: Quotations can be linked to individual sales campaigns for performance measurement. Several quotations can be grouped under one campaign for overall ROI measurement.
Source: When creating quotations for prospects, detail the lead source (campaign referrals, supplier networks, trade shows, etc.). For current clients, just tag as 'Existing Customer' for CRM tracking.
Competitive Quotation: Reference quotations of suppliers while preparing quotes to allow real-time comparison of margins. This allows immediate profitability determination and competitive pricing strategy adjustment.
3.10 Submitting the Quotation
Quotation is a “Submittable” transaction. When you click on Save, a draft is saved, on submitting, it is submitted permanently. Since you send this Quotation to your Customer or Lead, you must freeze it so that changes are not made after you send the Quotation.
When you submit a quotation, you can create a sales order automatically by choosing the Create option. Visibility into all related sales orders is available from the sales dashboard to facilitate order management. In the event the opportunity fails to convert, update the status of the quotation to Lost through the Status dropdown to have accurate tracking and reporting in sales pipelines.
