Quotation

A quotation is the priced offer you put in front of a prospect before anyone has committed to anything. It is the head of the sales chain: a clean, printable document that states what you will supply, at what price, on what terms, and for how long the offer stands. Nothing in your accounts or stock moves when you raise one. Its job is to win the deal, and to become the seed every later order or invoice grows from.

A quotation is one document with three faces

The same record can be issued as one of three types, which only changes what it is called and how it is meant to be read:

• Estimate – an early, indicative figure for a job whose scope is still loose.
• Quotation – the firm priced offer, the everyday case.
• Proforma Invoice – a pre-sale bill used to ask for payment up front. Only this type can generate a customer deposit, which is how you collect money before the real invoice exists.

Anatomy of the screen

The quotation is a single unified form rather than a set of tabs. Reading down it:

• Customer block – pick an existing customer or create one on the fly without leaving the quote. Choose the attention person (a customer contact), and a delivery address that defaults to the billing address until you say otherwise.
• Document block – the code, date, type, currency (where multi-currency is enabled), a validity in days, and an optional project to cost the work against.
• Order items – the shared line editor: products pulled from the catalogue, with quantity, price, discount and tax per line. This is the same editor every sales document uses.
• Advance deposit – a collapsible section to request a deposit amount against a chosen account, with its own instructions.
• Payment terms – the sales term, its instruction text, any other instructions and notes.
• Attachments – supporting files travelling with the document.

How it behaves

Lifecycle

A quotation moves through Draft, an optional Verify step where a superior accepts or rejects it, and Confirm, after which it is a settled offer. It can be Cancelled at any point. While it sits in verification a verdict of pending, accepted or rejected decides whether it may advance.

Validity

A confirmed quotation counts down its validity days and shows the remaining time. Once that window passes it is flagged as expired, a visual cue that the price is no longer guaranteed.

The line maths

Each line is priced as quantity times unit price to give a subtotal, less any discount, with tax charged on the discounted figure. The document totals are simply the sums: subtotal, discount and tax, where total equals subtotal minus discount plus tax. Every sales document shares this arithmetic, so a number means the same thing wherever you see it.

What happens after Confirm

Once confirmed, the quotation surfaces whatever has been generated from it and in what state, so you can see at a glance that it became an order, that the order is complete, or that it lapsed unanswered.

Worked example

You quote Acme thirty Widget A at 50.00. You build the line, set net-30 terms and a 30-day validity, then confirm. Acme accepts, so from the quotation you generate a sales order in one click: the customer, lines and terms carry straight over, and the order keeps a link back to this quotation so the trail is intact. Had Acme asked to pay up front, you would have issued the same document as a proforma and generated a customer deposit from it instead.

Edge cases and good practice

• Copy as Variation vs Copy as New. A variation keeps a link to the original (use it when you are revising an offer for the same deal); a new copy is independent (use it to reuse a quote as a template for a different customer).
• Use the type honestly. Keep estimates for genuinely loose scope so an “Estimate” never reads as a firm price you must hold to.
• Proforma for money up front. Reach for the proforma type whenever you need a deposit before committing stock or work.

Related

• How to: Create and send a quotation
• Reference: Sales Order (the next step)
• Reference: Line items (the shared editor)
• Reference: Customer Deposits (from a proforma)