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Quoting prices for projects and products is a necessary part of business for many companies, yet many small businesses are still creating individual quotes manually in Word and rely on teams setting quotes with the right margin in place. Having one set price for everyone just isn’t possible for many services, and even some businesses selling goods don’t want to offer flat prices to all of their customers.
The art of providing and managing accurate quotes isn’t always easy to do. When you could be creating quotes for many different customers at the same time, and perhaps offering differing price lists to specific customer groups due to loyalty rewards or other factors, juggling all of your quotes can be tricky, laborious and time-consuming. With the right systems and tools, your business can manage quoting more easily.
Making Accurate Quoting Easier for Small Businesses
The way you provide quotes to your customers is essential for margins and therefore the survival of your business. You need to provide quotes that are correct, detailed, take into account all of your expenses and are easy to update if changes need to be made. If you get your quotes wrong, or they take too long, you could end up losing business. New technologies now enable you to simplify the process, eliminating multiple pricing sources or manual pricing, track your quoting history for comparison and improve accuracy. All of this saves time and gives you a one-click view of your pipeline meaning you have more time to develop even more business.
Standardising Quotes with Product Catalogues
Whether a business is selling products, services or consultancy, having a standardised quoting system means greater accuracy and that any member of the team can raise a quote correctly and with the right margins and discounts. Good quoting systems have a dynamic product catalogue which provides any sales person with the information they need quickly and accurately and auto-populate and add up the quote. An automated product catalogue means the manual element of costing (and its inherent human inaccuracies) is taken out of most quoting. A step further in this process is automating a dynamic purchase order workflow, so when orders reduce your stock below a benchmark level, new orders are automated, ensuring you are always able to deliver to your client on time.
Tailoring Quotes for Individual Customers
There are times when you might provide different quotes to different customers. Some loyal customers might receive discounts, or you might decide to raise your prices for new customers, for example. Being able to have customer-specific pricing ensures you don’t get mixed up and give the wrong quotes to your customers and you maintain your margins. When you have business software that includes this feature, it’s easy to keep everything straight and avoid any costly mistakes.
Integrating Quotes with the Order Process
Many businesses remain stuck in a manual sales admin process once a quote has been received. Not only do they have to set the order in motion, they have to ensure that there is availability and often schedule services. Many manual processes are still relied on for this from email to whiteboards and dockets to separate scheduling or project systems. In this situation, how do you keep track properly and know where your customer’s order is in the pipeline or whether stock is available? Combining quoting, order management and purchase orders in one system makes this process seamless and easily trackable. With the right features and integrations, you can also have your orders tie into your accounts software, inventory, project management, & scheduling, assign tasks and more.
Automation of your quoting and order management process in one software not only speeds up your quoting process but it makes it more accurate too which is essential for the growth of your business.