Quotes and quote management
Opportunities provide account executives and sales teams with an avenue to work on the specific details about a proposed solution for a customer. When a customer is ready for a formal proposal that contains the most current pricing information and product quantities, they're presented with a quote.
Creating quotes
Quotes can be created manually, however, the easiest way to create a quote is directly from an opportunity. Quotes can be added by selecting the New Quote button on the Quotes subgrid located on the Quotes tab on an existing opportunity record. One key advantage of generating a quote from an opportunity is that the quote will be pre-filled with important details from the opportunity record, such as pricing information and any attached line items.
Working with quote products
As mentioned previously, when the quote is first created for an opportunity, product line items on the opportunity will be added to the quote. All the products attached to the quote will be displayed in the product subgrid. Individual product line items can be added and removed as needed. Products can be added manually by selecting the + Add Product button. This opens the New Quote Line form where the product can be added like it would for an opportunity.
If your system administrator has enabled the Enhanced experience for adding products, when you select the + Add Product button, you'll be taken to the Add products screen when you can easily add products by selecting the quantities you want for specific products. Once you've defined the quantities, you want you can save the updated products to the quote. You can find more about the enhanced product experience here: Enable or Disable the enhanced experience for adding products.
Sometimes it's easier to add a product from an existing opportunity record. For example, an organization might have two separate opportunities opened for a customer. The customer might ask to quote both opportunities together. In this instance, the products from the second opportunity could be added to the existing quote. To add products from your opportunity to your quote, select Get Products from the command bar on the Quote form. When the Get Products page opens, you can select the opportunity that contains the products that you want to add.
Important
Get Products simply copies the product line from an opportunity to the quote. It does not check to see if a product is already on the quote. It is possible to add the product line item multiple times. After the products have been added, double check to ensure that you do not have any items listed twice that should not be.
Line items can be edited from the products sub-grid by selecting the item and choosing to edit. Additionally, products can be removed by selecting the ellipsis (...) and then selecting Delete quote product.
Note
As line items are being added, make sure that the quote and all line items are using the same currency. For example, if your quote has the currency set to US dollar, you must use the same currency for the price list items that you add to the quote. You cannot change the currency of the quote unless you remove all the line items associated with the record. Similarly, if the quote is created from an opportunity, it must use the same currency as the opportunity.
When your quote is ready to send to your customer, it can be activated using the Activate Quote button.
Sending quotes
When a quote is created, it has a status of Draft. Draft quotes can be modified and have products added or removed. When the quote is ready to be presented to a customer, it needs to be activated. An activated quote is read only. This is part of a conventional sales process and can be used to ensure that the terms of the quote are clearly understood by both parties on the potential transaction.
After a quote is active, it's ready to be presented to the customer. Quotes can be generated as Microsoft Word documents. To generate a quote for the customer, select Word Templates from the command bar, and choose Print quote for customer. A Word document will be created that you can print or if enabled, you can Export the quote to a PDF, and send to your customer.
Revise a quote
Typically, the first version of a quote presented to the customer isn't generally the version they end up signing. It's common for a customer to request that a specific product is removed, or to have quantities adjusted. For example, the quote may include 10 security cameras, but the customer decides they want to start with five cameras.
When a quote is activated, it can't be edited. Any changes that need to be made must be done as revisions. Revisions are done by selecting the Revise button on the command bar. When a quote is revised, the original version of the quote is closed, and a new version is created with an updated revision number. This ensures that all previous versions of the quote are accessible at any time. After the necessary changes have been made, the updated quote can be activated so it can be presented to the customer.
Closing quotes
After a quote is accepted, an order can be generated. The order helps fulfill the agreement of goods or services offered in the quote. The process of converting a quote to an order is done by selecting the Create order button on the command bar. When the order is created, the contents of the quote are added to the order record, and the quote is closed. Additionally, if the quote was generated from an opportunity, you can select to close the opportunity as well. It's important to note that after a quote is accepted, you won't be able to revise it.
Quotes can also be closed without an order being generated. This is done in scenarios where an organization loses a deal for some reason. This is also done from the command bar, by selecting the Close quote button.