The Quoting Menu

So let's navigate straight to the Quoting Menu.

Open

Here you can see a range of options. You can view the different types of quotes available via Quote Types, these are configured by your organization and provide you with pre-configured quoting templates with preset conditions such as the pricing logic or calculation parameters, what header will display, and the workflow logic for approval as well as the user groups that can edit and view certain quote types.

Open

You may already have a set of quote types configured specifically for your department or for specific customers or groups of customers, so it's worth reviewing them before you create a new quote as these templates save you time and effort.

 Next on the Menu is Quotes, which you'll look at in more detail in this section, but let’s skip ahead to the Mass Update function which allows you to make mass changes to existing quotes that are in a Draft or Approved Status.

And then finally, the Price Records are created automatically after a quote is approved by a customer.

This is where you'd go to view active or approved quotes for a customer.

Now let's look at Quotes and walk through the quoting process

Here you can see the landing page for the quoting module. 

You've got simple filtering enabled up top which is also a running theme throughout the entire platform.  That allows you to filter by any of these attributes up top so for example if you just want to take a look at your personal quotes you can start typing and the list will update.

You can save those filtering options as a preference and hide and add fields as you need as well.

Creating a New Quote

The first step in the quoting process is the creation and if you select New Quote you get a list of all the Quote Types or Templates available and can select the most appropriate type from the list.

If you click on + New Quote and Select a Quote Type you can follow the steps.

So let's go ahead and take a closer look at this process.

For this example we’re opening an Existing Quote, working through it.

Editing the Quote Name

Let's begin at the top. From the Godfather release, or version 8.0 you can now edit the quote name directly within this window. At the top of the page you see the quote name and next to it you see the pencil or edit icon.

If you click on that you can now make changes.

Quote Status

Also new in the Godfather release you have the quote status displayed here at the top too. 

Quote Tabs

Then if you move down the quoting process is laid out by tabs.

First, you've got the header level then you've got the items which is the basket of products quoted for the specific customer, attachments allow you to include any legal verbiage or any other document that you'd like to attach to the quote itself. The workflow will be linked directly to some triggers that can be configured on the quote, the messages tab allows you to use an instant messaging experience to collaborate within your organization. And if you have the Customer Insights Accelerator installed you can access Customer Specific insights on the Insights tab.

Let’s take a look at each of these tabs separately.

Header Tab (Inputs and Parameters)

On the Header tab, you've got a header level of the waterfall. The information here is updated as you make changes to the quote. 

You can also choose to hide the header to free up room on your screen and simply bring it back when you're ready to use it.

Here you'll hide it along with the Calculations tab, which you'll look at later.

The Header Tab has important information such as the validity date or the effective date here you've got a selection as a calendar format which is already gone ahead and pre-selected the dates, for example, from December 2021 through to the next year.

This external reference field allows you to link it to an existing quote or even an external document that you may need to link to.

You've also got the capability to add user group edits and user group view details which allows you to browse within your organization and add groups and teams that you'd like to have a view or edit access to this quote. If you selected a quote type that had this configured it would auto-populate the information.

As a Sales Rep once you've entered in the validity dates you move on to the discount and customer selection.

Select whether or not you want to add a discount and the discount type and a new field appears for you to populate the percentage discount to apply. You can see this if you select an additional discount. However, it's important to note that if you provide a discount here this will be applied to the net price of all products for the entire quote and you can't then add your own price for any item on the item tab. 

If you know the Customer ID you can simply start typing it and the system will filter it for you, however, if you don't you can click on the magnifying glass or Browse button and a list of all customers becomes visible.

This list can be restricted by the country for example and restricted to only the customers that you are able to sell to. After the selection, you must click on the Select button in the bottom-right corner.

Once you've selected your customer the Currency is automatically populated by default and you can add any additional Installation/Services/Customization Charge as a percentage too.

 Next, you've got some additional details here on the right-side too. You can expand the Pricing Details here and see more information of the quote, based on the items you've already selected, as well as the customer history,

Here is also a link to a sales overview showing information, based on the SKUs that are already on the quote itself, looking forward to the next 12 months.

You've also got some nice information surrounding the customer history, this customer's revenue, the quantities that they bought in the past, and their margins in percentage as well as a dollar value. 

Items Tab (Adding Products)

Next, once you've completed the administrative data at the header level you move onto the items tab.

On the Items tab here you are able to add the products themselves by hitting Browse/Add Items button you're able to populate the products that this specific customer is able to purchase so you can limit this product list based on high-level selections.

With Version 8.0 or newer you can also now add folders and group items into those folders to simplify your own workflow.

You can see here there are two folders with some products already added to the quote.

If you wanted to move all or some products into the folders simply select them, click on Move To, select the folder and click OK and now on folder B you can see the products added. You can also open/close the folder to expand it and see the products.

Now let's look at the products themselves. If you wanted to add new items you simply click on Add Items button and a search bar appears. This is great for adding a small number of items, but if you wanted to add more you can click on the dropdown arrow and you have the option to browse items, which brings up the product data and you can now filter or search and add all products or those that meet your filter criteria.

Additionally, you also have the Recommended tab at the top here and that presents you with similar or related products that your customer might consider.

You can select and add these here or if you close the window and head back to the drop-down menu again you can see that you have a shortcut to recommended products here too. So let's add a recommended product, click on the Select button, and head back to the items screen.

The item is now added and you can add information such as price and quantity to the quote.

We can see here that the added product has appeared with a quantity of 1. So let's work through them and add quantities. Remember that if you're applying a discount to the entire quote the system calculates that resulting price and there is no need to enter it here. 

As you go you see that the rest of the fields don't update. Don't worry, you're inputting the details and will then recalculate the quote in a moment. So let's finish the pricing and quantities first. You can add 10 units in the Quantity field for this example, and click on the Recalculate button.

Now let's display the Waterfall Header again so that you can see the change. After the recalculation, the system displays a confirmation message, once it's completed refresh the browser and you can see that the Waterfall chart has been updated.

Let's minimize that again and look at what additional information you have per product on the sidebar here.

If you select a product you can now see that you have two additional tabs appear, the first is Input Parameters and this allows you to make specific changes to only this product line.

But before you do that let's have a look at the Calculations tab. This tab provides you with insights into this product:

Such as competitor pricing, previous prices, the pricing details with suggested prices, any available promotions and their details, taxes, product history, pricing guidance, analytics, and pricing insights for this quote. So before you make changes to prices, quantities, or discounts, this is where you'd look for additional guidance.

 Once you have the information you need, you can navigate back to input parameters and make any adjustments you need. To move to the next product, simply select it on the left and its information appears.

Here you can also see the discount entered previously applied for the product.

If you make changes remember to hit Recalculate from time to time as the recalculation process will show any errors as you go along and you can learn from and correct them as you move along.

If you scroll to the right now you can see a whole variety of additional date for the quote, but to view it all, you want to first autofit the columns to display the full text.

Now as you scroll to the right you can see product details line by line, from the margin, through the fixed cost, customer negotiated discounts, floor, target, and stretch prices, which are all based on your own internal organization settings and all of these analytical options.

Here you have Price Quality and Margin Alert, which displays a gauge of the health of the pricing on this quote.

Click on the Show option in the Inline Analytics which provides you with a bar and line chart presenting all the pricing and revenue data in one place.

The Inline Analytics for Benchmarking “Show” option provides a scatter plot chart with information on Distributor, Industry, Direct Customer, and the Net Price.

These graphs and charts are all configured by your implementation team to meet your own organizational goals, so may differ depending on configuration as well as data contained within your systems. 

Then as you continue to scroll right you can see more information on the product as well as the quote itself.

 OK, so now let's say you want to remove some of the products that don't meet the parameters, you can simply select one or more and click on the Delete Items button and they're gone.

So let's now look at the details and settings sidebar that you collapsed earlier.

If you have no products selected you'll see have 3 more tabs of information, the details of the quote:

The Input Parameters tab, which can display specific input parameters for the quote:

And the Calculations tab brings information about the quote and the parameters entered in the Header tab so that you don't need to switch back and forth. You can make changes here, to discounts and charges, and view the calculation results and the customer history too. 

Attachments Tab

Once you are happy with the health of this quote based, you'll move on to the Attachments tab here you can upload files as you need. You can select existing documents and download them too if you're working on an existing quote and a colleague has uploaded information that you need to review. 

Workflow Tab

Next, the workflow tab allows you to view the workflow, see the approval status and any available approver details.

Messages Tab

And that brings you to your messages tab. This tab will allow you to collaborate with colleagues through instant messaging. So you simply select or search for a colleague, input a message, and hit the send icon.

The recipient will receive an email so they can go ahead and take a look at the quote object itself and also respond to this message.

This is available throughout the quoting lifecycle and responses will be saved on this object for future use if needed

Insights Tab

And finally here, if your organization has installed our Customer Insights Accelerator package you'll have the Insights tab, which provides you with a customer dashboard, with graphs, charts, and summaries of your relationship with the customer.

Submitting the Quote

Now before you share this with a customer you may want to have it approved, so you simply submit it here and it enters the workflow for approval.

Email the Quote

Once it's approved you can click on Email Quote and share it with a customer.

Here you can see the email options which you can populate and at the bottom here you can see that you can select a document template, which your organization will have pre-configured with your logo, legal verbal, etc…

You can also select to share the document as a PDF only and add additional attachments too.

And when you're ready click send and if you have Docusign integrated with your system, your customer can approve the quote electronically too.

Price Records

Once that's all done and approved internally and accepted by your customer, a price record will be added to the system for future reference.

You can find out more detailed information about price records here.