Quotes

A quote is a priced offer to a customer: the items they asked about, the quantity, the price and how long the offer stands. Use it for any sale you price before you commit to it, such as a tank set, a batch of cylinders, an appliance installation or a service contract. When the customer accepts, the quote becomes a sales order. Bulk propane deliveries are not quoted here; each delivery is invoiced directly (see Deliveries).

How to prepare a quote when a customer asks for a price

1. Go to Sales → Quotes and click Add Quote, or convert a customer's request from Requests for quote.
2. Choose the Customer and, if it matters, the Customer Location, then set the Expiration Date after which the offer lapses. Fill in the Sales Person, Estimator and the customer's reference under Customer RFQ if they gave you one.
3. Add a line for each item: choose the item, a Short Description, the Quantity and, if the customer wants several prices, more than one quantity. Each quantity is a quantity break with its own price, so the price for ten cylinders can differ from the price for a hundred.
4. Review the price on each line. AimRack starts from the item's price and applies the customer's price list and your pricing rules; the refresh control on the line's pricing redoes this after you change the customer or the quantities. You can type a different Unit Price, and add a Lead Time when the item takes time to get.
5. Set the payment details (Invoice Customer, Invoice Location, Invoice Contact, Payment Term) and the shipping details (Shipment Location, Shipping Method, Shipping Cost) in the quote's payment and shipment sections.

A quote stays a Draft while you work on it. Each line shows its own progress: Not Started, In Progress, Complete, or No Quote when you decline to price it (choose a No Quote Reason).

How to send a quote when the prices are ready

1. Click Finalize and confirm. AimRack checks that every line has a price or a lead time and that shipping costs are filled in, and says what is missing if not.
2. The quote moves to Sent and is locked; its lines that were in progress become Complete.
3. Click Share to copy the quote's private link and send it to the customer, or use Preview and PDF to send the document itself.

On the private link the customer sees the lines, the price for each quantity, the totals, shipping and payment terms and your external notes; internal notes are never shown. They can click Accept Quote, entering their name and email, choosing a quantity per line and optionally attaching their purchase order, which turns the quote into a sales order at once. Or they can click Reject Quote, which marks the quote Lost. Only a Sent quote can be answered, and after the expiration date the link shows that the offer has expired. Anyone who has the link can open it, so send it only to the right person.

How to turn a quote into an order when the customer says yes by phone

1. Open the quote and click Won.
2. In the drawer, choose which lines and which quantity break the customer accepted, confirm the customer details and, if they gave one, enter the Customer PO.
3. Click Convert. AimRack creates the sales order at the agreed prices. The quote becomes Ordered, or Partial when only some lines were converted.

When the customer says no, click Lost instead.

How to change a quote when it has already been sent

A quote is locked once it leaves Draft. Click Reopen to bring it back to Draft and edit it; a quote that has already become an order cannot be reopened. To keep the version you sent, use Create Revision instead: AimRack copies the quote with the same number and a revision suffix, such as Q000001-1, and the copy gets its own share link. Copy Quote makes a new quote with a new number, which is useful for a similar job for a different customer.

Where this fits

• A quote often starts from a customer's request for quote.
• Prices come from the customer's price list and your pricing rules, set up under Sales.
• An accepted quote becomes a sales order, which is then shipped and invoiced.