Working with quotes
Included with Professional and Enterprise
A quote is an enquiry you are pricing before it becomes a job. It holds the client, the property, who is pricing it, the fee you quote and the client's answer. Accepting a quote creates a job with the quote's details copied across. Rejecting it records the reason.
To create a job without a quote, start it from the Valuations page.
From enquiry to job
- Record the enquiry. Click New quote and enter the client and the property. The quote is New quote.
- Complete the details. Give it a category and the person who will price it, and save. VOW moves it to Awaiting quotation.
- Price it. Enter the quote amount and the responsible valuer, and save. VOW moves it to Ready to send.
- Send it. Click Send to client and email the quote from VOW, or mark it as sent. The quote is Awaiting reply.
- Record the answer. When the client says yes, click Accept and VOW creates the job from the quote. When they say no, click Reject and record why.
From enquiry to job in one take
Before you start
- Your role needs the quote permissions. Without them, Quotes is not in your main menu. Give your staff access to quotes, email and requests shows how a new company sets them up, and Set up users shows how an administrator gives them to one person.
- Open Quotes from the main menu. The table shows every quote still in progress. Accepted, rejected and cancelled quotes are hidden until you turn on Show completed.
The statuses and what moves them
Every quote is in one of seven statuses. The first four are in progress. VOW moves a quote through the first three on its own, as soon as a save gives it what the next status needs.
| Status | What it means | What moves it on |
|---|---|---|
| New quote | The enquiry is recorded but something is missing before it can be priced. | VOW, when you save the quote with a category, someone under To be quoted by, a named client contact and a full address (street or property name, suburb, state and LGA). |
| Awaiting quotation | Everything is there and the quote is waiting to be priced. | VOW, when you save a Quote amount. |
| Ready to send | The fee is set and the quote can go to the client. | You, with Send to client. |
| Awaiting reply | The quote is with the client. | You, with Accept or Reject once the client answers. |
| Accepted | The client said yes. A job is usually created or linked at the same time. | Final. |
| Rejected | The client said no. The reason is recorded. | Reopen quote, if they change their mind. |
| Cancelled | Your company withdrew the quote at any in-progress stage. | Reopen quote, if it was cancelled by mistake. |
Accept and reject are only offered once a quote is awaiting a reply. Cancel is offered at any in-progress stage. Reopen puts a rejected or cancelled quote back to the status it had before it was closed. A quote cancelled before it was sent goes back to being prepared, not to awaiting a reply. An accepted quote cannot be reopened.
The stepper at the top of every quote has five steps. These are Created, Awaiting quotation, Ready to send, Sent and Response received. The current step is highlighted. Once the client has answered, the last step reads Response: Accepted, Response: Rejected or Response: Cancelled with the reason underneath.
The dates on a quote
| Date | What it records |
|---|---|
| Date received | The day the enquiry came in. Set to today when the quote is created. |
| Quote due date | Your deadline to get the quote to the client. Filled in from your company's quote turnaround when one is set, and shown in red in the table once it has passed. |
| Date sent to client | The day the quote went to the client. Set when you click Send to client, or by hand. |
| Date accepted, rejected or cancelled | The day the quote was closed. Set by the action that closed it. |
A quote that has been awaiting a reply for more than seven days is flagged in the table's Sent column and counted as stale on the dashboard's Quote summary panel.
Who does what
The Assignee and the people in To be quoted by see the quote on their dashboard's Quote summary panel.
- Assignee manages the quote from enquiry to answer, usually the person who took the call.
- To be quoted by lists the people who price it. Any of them can enter the amount. The label changes to Quoted by once an amount is in. If your company has valuer notifications turned on, each newly added person is emailed.
- Responsible valuer and Additional valuers are the valuers who do the job if the quote is accepted. They are copied onto the job.
The lessons in order
Each lesson starts where the previous one finished.
- Create a quote
- Edit a quote
- Price and send a quote
- Accept a quote
- Link a quote to a job
- Reject, cancel or reopen a quote
- Find a quote
- Quote attachments and history
For every field on a quote, see the Quote form reference. For every column and filter in the table, see Quotes table.