Solutions · Sales and quotations
Quotations that become the order.
From the client's request to the quotation, the proforma invoice and the sales invoice, with every version kept. Built around how you price and what you send, and yours to change.
One quotation, as stored
- 10:05Quotation createdSix lines read from the client's request fileDFT-000112
- 10:40Quotation line mappedEach line tied to an item. Two suggestions overridden
- 15:20Quotation line rate setVendor, rate and freight entered per line
- 16:45Quotation confirmedThe draft gets its numberQTN-000071
- 16:50Quotation sent
- 11:15Quotation lockedNext day, after the client agrees. A change now is a new versionVersion 1
- 11:30PI createdProforma invoice, from the locked lines
- 12 days onSales invoice createdFour lines received and dispatched. Two still open
Event names from the spares operations system that runs at an engineering group. Numbers and times are invented.
Running it today
Every quotation is its own file, and every version a new name.
If you run a sales desk for engineered goods, the request rarely arrives in a form you can use. At a spares business supplying steel mills, it came by email or WhatsApp as a spreadsheet, a PDF or a handwritten slip. The items were typed out again by hand, and the client's wording rarely matched the names used inside.
Each quotation was a separate spreadsheet file, renamed by hand for each version. Proforma invoice numbers were assigned by hand, and the status of each was a free-text remark. Who had been asked to buy what was agreed aloud.
For capital equipment the document is longer. At a builder of rolling mills, a technical offer runs from 40 to 200 pages: sections written for the project, and ready-made pages of drawings and specifications for each machine. Offers were revised and sent again under revision codes, and terms drifted slightly from one offer to the next.
Why own it
How you quote is how you compete.
Sales software follows an opportunity through stages and can produce a quote from a price list. That covers what every sales team has in common, and it works when you sell from a price list.
It bites when the price has to be built: a rate from a vendor, freight, a unit that differs between the vendor and the client. It bites again when the quotation is not the end but the start of a proforma invoice, purchase orders, receipts and a sales invoice that should all be one thread. And it bites hardest on the document itself. Your offer layout, your scope table and your numbering are yours, and a generic template is exactly what you do not want to send.
These are the parts a vendor will not prioritise, because no other customer has them. When you own the system they are the first things built, and when your terms or your catalogue change, the system changes with them. No scoping call, no estimate, no waiting for a release window.
What an owned system records
A quotation is a sequence of decisions, each one kept.
In the system that runs at the engineering group's spares business, the request file is read into lines, each line is mapped to an item, a rate is set per line, and the quotation is confirmed, sent and locked. Each step is an event with a person and a time. The proforma invoice is created from the locked lines, and the sales invoice from the lines that are ready.
Nothing is overwritten. A change after locking is a new version. An invoice cannot be edited, only cancelled. So:
- Trace. An invoice line leads back to the proforma, the quotation version, the rate and who set it, and the client's original file.
- Correct without overwriting. A revision copies the locked version into a fresh draft. Version one is still there, exactly as it was sent.
- Reports that draw on history. Open lines, pending dispatch and the last rate an item sold at are read from the record, not from somebody's folder.
Already handled
The hard parts, already built once.
Two systems for two kinds of sale, both built for one engineering group: one that is all about prices, and one that holds none.
Engineering group: Request to invoice case study
Requests in any form
A spreadsheet, a PDF or a photograph of a slip is read into lines by an AI model. A person confirms every line before anything is saved.
Engineering group: Request to invoice case study
The client's words for your parts
Items carry narrations: the ways clients describe them. A match is suggested against those, and a person accepts or overrides it.
Engineering group: Request to invoice case study
Units that differ
The vendor's unit is matched to the order's unit, and the last sale rate is converted between units before anyone compares them.
Engineering group: Request to invoice case study
Locking in the right order
A quotation can be locked only after it is sent. It can be revised into a new draft version until a proforma invoice exists. The proforma is locked when the client's own order arrives, with its number and dates.
Engineering group: Request to invoice case study
Internal columns stay internal
The documents the client receives leave out the purchase rate, the vendor and the member of staff assigned to the line.
Engineering group: Request to invoice case study
Invoicing what is ready
A sales invoice is raised from the lines that have been received, while the rest stay open. Stock can also be invoiced with no proforma behind it.
Engineering group: Technical offers case study
The catalogue at the moment of locking
An offer is assembled from catalogue equipment, each item with its drawings. Locking generates the PDF, numbers the pages and stores it. Later changes to the catalogue do not touch it.
Engineering group: Technical offers case study
Who supplies what
Each scope row marks, across seven columns from design to commissioning, whether the supplier or the customer is responsible. Ticking equipment fills the grid, and rows already adjusted keep their adjustments.
Engineering group: Technical offers case study
The chart that stays in a spreadsheet
The production chart is still prepared in a spreadsheet. The builder uploads it, and the table is found by its labels, not by cell position.
The first build
The first build describes your sale, from request to invoice.
The first build is not a pilot. It is where your sales process gets described, and that description is what every later system is built from. It is written beside the people who read the requests, build the rates and sign the documents.
Entities
The things your operation keeps track of.
- Your items, and how your clients name them
- Your customers, vendors and price sources
- Your documents, letterhead and numbering
- Your catalogue and standard terms
Events
What happens to them, in your words.
- Request received and read
- Rate set, and by whom
- Confirmed, sent, locked, revised
- Order, proforma and invoice
Exceptions
What happens when it does not go to plan.
- The request nobody can read
- A change after the client has agreed
- Part deliveries and direct shipments
- Who may lock, and what a revision copies forward
What carries forward from the foundation
The event log, roles and permissions and reporting come from the foundation, so the first build is fast because most of it is already written. How a price is built, and what your client must never see, is designed fresh each time.
What comes after
The order is already on record. Buying against it comes next.
A locked quotation is the natural start of the next process. At the engineering group's spares business the same record carries on into purchase orders, goods receipts and dispatch, and the reports are that record read in different ways. A new product line or a second sales office sits on the same items, customers and history, without a migration.
After the first build the framework becomes available to you. Your own engineers and product people can build the next system on it, or we carry on building for you. Both stay open, and the terms are settled in the first conversation, scoped to the engagement.
Get started
Tell us how a request becomes a price.
What arrives from the client, who builds the rate, and what the document has to look like. The first conversation is about your sale, not a demo.
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