Why use Quotes?
Do you ever have problems knowing exactly which customers and prospects have been sent quotes and what’s happening with them?
Do you need to manage different offerings and amendments to the Products & Services included within an Opportunity as it progresses?
Do you need to track revisions as well as which quotes are accepted vs rejected?
If the answer to any of those questions is “Yes” then our Quotes feature is for you! ⤵
Quotes is available to Unlimited Tier customers as part of their subscription. For Enterprise, Business and Starter customers, this is a paid-for Add-on. Please contact your Account Manager to discuss adding to your subscription.
Overview
The Quotes feature allows you to manage the process of preparing and sending quotes to your customers and prospects ⤵
Link an individual Quote to an Opportunity as well as an Account and Contact(s).
Create multiple Quotes linked to the same Opportunity to allow for the presentation of different product/services offerings. You can also tie the most likely offering to the Opportunity by syncing the products and services bi-directionally between the Quote and the Opportunity.
Enhance your management of Quotes and their follow up using a Quote Process. Multiple Quote processes can be set up as required.
Quotes can be “Accepted” or Archived in a similar way to Opportunities.
Create multiple separate Quote Forms to represent different types of Quote linking each Form to a single Quote Process and using different Fields for each different type of Quote.
Use Automatizer processes using Quotes as your trigger or as an Action (i.e. Quotes can be created or updated by your automated process).
View Quotes from the Quotes menu or the Quotes tab against an Opportunity, an Account or a Contact.
Link follow up Activities directly to each Quote and see them in the Activities menu and the Feeds menu.
Output the Quote information - including the Products & Services grid - to Office 365 Word or Google Docs Templates and then attach the resulting file to the Documents tab and email it directly to your prospect/customer (dependent on having an active O365 or Gmail email integration).
Manage user visibility and update access to Quotes from their User Role in the Admin Module.
Report on Quotes in Reports and Dashboards.
Export Quote data.
Creating a new Quote
You can create a new Quote for an Opportunity you are working on by clicking on the Quotes tab and then selecting the “Create New” button ⤵
Your new Quote will contain all Products & Services currently included on the Opportunity as well as the linked Account(s) and Contact(s). You just need to complete the Quote specific fields - Expiration Date, for example - and click on “Create” or “Create and Open” if you want to immediately work on the Quote by creating Activities, for example ⤵
Alternatively, if your Opportunity has several associated Products & Services but you only want individual line items to be included in your Quote, tick each one that you want to include from within the Product Grid and then choose “Create Quote” from the Actions dropdown list ⤵
Your new Quote will only include the Products/Services that you selected ⤵
Fill in the Quote specific fields and click on “Create” or “Create and Open” if you want to immediately work on the Quote.
If you choose “Create”, you’ll still receive a prompt at the top of the screen that will allow you to jump straight to your new Quote to open it ⤵
NOTE: Quotes can also be created from the main Quotes menu or from the Quotes Tab on an Account or Contact record.
Viewing Quotes from a Record
You’ll be able to see all Quotes associated with an Opportunity (or an Account or Contact) from the Quotes tab when you open up a record ⤵
NOTE: remember you can customise the columns that you see in any list view by clicking on the rightmost icon and adding/removing selections.
Viewing Quotes from the Quotes Menu
Click on the main Quotes menu to see all Quotes that you have access to and choose between the List View and the Board View which shows where all Quotes are in the process that you’re using ⤵
Use the Profile dropdown to choose which Quotes you want to see (the “All Users” profile shows you all Quotes you have visibility rights for whereas “My” shows you just those you are the Owner of) ⤵
You can create additional custom Profiles using the gear icon to open up the Power Panel and then clicking on the Filter tab and adding specific filter criteria if you need to ⤵
In the List View, customise the columns you want to see by adding and removing additional fields. You can also switch on Highlight Changes to track recent updates ⤵
Updating Quotes
You can choose “Move”, “Copy”, “Change Ownership” or “Archive” a Quote from the dropdown arrow on the right hand side of the List View ⤵
From the Board View, you can drag and drop the Quote to the next step (or back a step, if necessary) or use the menu buttons at the top of the screen to take further actions such as sending an email or running an Automatizer process ⤵
Double click on a Quote from anywhere you can see it to open it up so you can add/update any field information in Detail or add Activities or Documents. Use the buttons on the menu to “Create New Activity”, “Move” to another step, “Use Template” to create a document to send out to your customer, “Copy” the Quote as an easy way to create a new version, “View Changes” to review the audit trail for the Quote or “Archive” the Quote if it is rejected ⤵
The right hand panel of the open Quote shows you when it was created and which version it is as well as which Quote Type Form and Quote Process you’re using (these are set up by your Pipeliner Admins in the Admin Module). It also displays the Automatizer widget which will tell you if any processes are attached to the Quote, the current Step - and you can “Move into next step”, the Quote’s Owner and any other team members who have been assigned to work on the Quote.
Syncing Products
If you create a Quote from an existing Opportunity, some - or all - of the Products linked to that Opportunity will be copied into the Quote. You can update Products from within the Quote itself by adding or removing Products from the Product Grid ⤵
Changes that you make to the Quote’s Products will not change the linked Opportunity’s Products unless you click on the “Product Sync” button. The default state is “Product sync is Off”. Toggling this button to “Product sync is On” will enable synchronization of Products between the Quote and its linked Opportunity.
This synchronization is bi-directional and will overwrite the Opportunity’s Products to match the Quote’s Products (and vice versa) ⤵
You can also switch on Product Sync from the Opportunity Detail. You can select one Quote that is linked to the Opportunity and the Products for the Opportunity and the selected Quote will then be tied together.
This synchronization is bi-directional and will overwrite the Quote’s Products to match the Opportunity’s Products (and vice versa) ⤵
Once “Product Sync is On”, clicking on the button will take you straight to the linked Active Quote ⤵
Only one Quote can be Active (i.e. Product Sync is On) at a time. You can change the Active Quote by selecting a different Quote that is linked to the Opportunity ⤵
From the Quote, you can switch Product Sync on and you’ll be notified and prompted if you want to replace the current Active Quote ⤵
NOTE: please be aware that switching on Product Sync will overwrite the linked Opportunity’s Products with those from the active Quote. You may only want to use this option later in the process when you know the Quote is accepted and want to dynamically update the Opportunity’s Products to match the Quote.
Working with Quote Processes
When your Admins set up the Quote Processes (and associated Quote Type Forms) in the Admin Module, they may enable some Quote-specific behaviours.
The first is that when you move a Quote into a particular step, the whole Quote may become read-only. This may be because no changes should be made to a Quote once it has been submitted to the customer, for example ⤵
The second option they could choose is that the Quote’s Version Number is incremented if the Quote is moved back into a particular step ⤵
This allows for the situation that the Quote was returned back to a previous step to implement changes requested by the customer, so the new draft will have an incremented version number.
Accepting and Archiving Quotes
When a Quote is accepted by your customer, you’ll move it into the final step of your Quote process ⤵
You’ll then be prompted to check over all the Quote information and decide whether to also win the linked Opportunity before choosing “Accept” or “Accept and Archive”. The Quote’s underlying system status will be automatically changed to “Accepted”.
NOTE: When winning an Opportunity, if there are any open Quotes, you’ll also be prompted as to whether you want to accept those related Quotes. ⤵
If however, a Quote is rejected by the customer, you’ll Archive it. Clicking on Archive will first prompt you to confirm if you want to complete all associated Activities or a related Opportunity ⤵
Then, if enabled by your Admins, you’ll be prompted to fill in a Lost Reason (and possibly other custom details) ⤵
NOTE: when Archiving an Opportunity, if there are any open Quotes, you’ll also be prompted as to whether you want to Archive those related Quotes.
The Quote’s underlying system status will be automatically changed to “Lost” and it will disappear from the Quotes menu but you will be able to see and access it from the Quotes Archive ⤵
Next steps/additional resources