While usually not the first impression one makes with a client, a quote or estimate to a client is usually the first formal document they receive. Additionally, the estimate is implicitly a call-to-action to a client and represents the last step before a deal is reached. As such, it is of incredible importance that your quotes present your company in the best light by looking clean and professional, as well as presenting information in an easily readable format for your prospective client’s consumption.
The creation of estimates was once a tedious process that required the painstaking entry of information into spreadsheet software and then its meticulous transfer to a word processor for formatting. In 2016, however, the use of quote software can both speed up the process, as well as ensure that each estimate your company sends out is beautifully formatted and without the typos and errors that can be produced as a result of repeated, manual quote creation.
Speed & Efficiency
Our CloudBooks software is built to allow your company to generate estimates quickly. This means that we attempt to reduce the amount of work your company needs to do, as often as possible. When you enter into the estimate generator, everything from the client’s name to items included in the estimate to tasks your employees will be performing can be selected from predetermined lists. This means that, rather than entering information over and over each time an estimate needs to be sent out, any standardized or regularly used items can simply be added to the estimate in seconds flat and without referring to price-books or calculating labor-hours for some task. Additionally, specific tax rates can be applied to items or tasks on-the-fly from our easy drop-down lists, while a client-specific discount can be added simply by inputting it in a discounts cell at the top of the generator.
More Details
Our goal with CloudBooks estimate generator was to produce quotes quickly and efficiently to save companies on administrative time and let them get back to doing the important work of running a business. What we did not want, however, was for that goal to lead to uninspiring estimates with little information on them; the goal was to attain both detail and speed. As such, the estimates our software generates contain not only an itemized list of goods and services to be provided, as well as a detailed breakdown of quantity, taxes and totals, but also a full set of administrative information such as the date the estimate was issued, as well as the mailing information for both the prospective client and your business. You can even add your company’s logo if you so desire!
Estimate Management
Anyone who runs a successful business knows that it can often be hard to track all of the different estimates you send out. Sometimes it can be difficult to match customers to their proper estimates when they call for more information, and sometimes quotes are misplaced or lost forever. This difficulty can cause any number of headaches, especially if you are trying to negotiate with a customer while only guessing at what items are on the estimate which they received. For this reason our CloudBooks software is built to create an easily searchable database of all the estimates that you send out. You can sort it by name, by number, by the day it was sent out, or even the total amount. It also keeps track of the status of each invoice — whether it is a draft or whether it was sent — so that you can more readily gauge what you have out to prospective clients.
Please contact us to learn about what our CloudBooks software can do for your company, from quotes and estimates to invoicing and expense management.
