Every business strives to attain more accuracy in their work especially when they are operating under an industry which requires them to remain accurate and correct. This goes to all kinds of businesses as well since every single one of them needs to document material and if it is done correctly, it leaves absolutely no room for mistakes. This is where a Quotation Management System ( QMS ) comes into play.
What is Quotation Management?
Quotation Management System ( QMS ) Software means designing and automating the client's Quotation. QMS Software objective is to improve as well as enhance client's business efficiency in creating and generating quotations, emailing quotations, maintain billing, and shipping information and providing enhanced QMS reporting features.
In layman terms, it is the tool that starts the sales process by allowing multiple aspects of your company to identify potential leads, and prepare for the forecasting of those sales in production.
Do you need a Quotation Management System?
There is no one straight answer to this question but there are a few factors that come into interplay and let you decide if you and your company is in dire need of a quotation management software or not. It is the kind of software which most definitely brings accuracy while working as well as efficiency to the table. Let's talk more about this,
- Quote generation and management with an interactive user interface.
- Integration with other application for easy and fast sharing of contents and data.
- Capability to handle billing and shipping information (mostly for commerce industry).
- A common/central repository for all the quotes.
- Advanced payment calculation engine with currency conversions.
- Integrated roles and permission management for multiple users.
Create: It caters you in creating for work orders and lays down all estimated costs which include details complete with statuses and terms & conditions.
Collate: Gathering and collecting the details that are based on status, work type, and customer helps you in keeping the information all in one place and organized. Gathering all details all in one place and collate for easy retrieval and reference makes working easier.
Sharing: It lets you share any kind of pdf file at just one click via email which again makes work very easy.
Conversion: It easily and carefully converts approved quotations to work orders without the need of re-entering client or quotation data.
Essential Features in a Quote Management System
Any modern high-level quotation system would include,Centralized solution for all branches/showrooms: There are many showrooms of the same business located in different places. In order for them to display the same quote, your QMS system should be centrally integrated and managed so that all the retail branches/ showroom are in sync with another. This centralizes the marketing strategy and helps create brand recognition among consumers.
Multiple Quotation Version Management: The most important aspect of any software or system is to be versatile with the changing trends as well as the needs of the people. Same goes with the quotation management system, it should be capable enough to make regular changes to its system according to the changing needs of people. Also, the agents should be able to access all the different versions from the same quote itself.
Search Quotation by Customer Details: To look for the customer details can be an excruciating and draining job. The Quotation Management System should allow an executive to search for a quotation by just entering the customer details. The system should show all quotations requested by a customer over a period of time.
Add Notes to Quotation An agent should be capable of adding personalized notes to the quotation for servicing and accessing the quotes in the future. Such notes will help other agents to understand the customer requirements, even when the agent who created the quote is not available.
Employee/Agent Dashboard: Any quotation management system should have a dashboard for an employee or agent access since it would help him in giving a holistic view about the quotations being generated and also, the follow ups as they require maximum sales revenue.
Performance Reporting: Under this, the quotation management system should be capable of observing and analyzing the performance of the agents and employees across the multiple locations and reporting it to the management.
Follow-up Reminders: A sufficient quotation management system comes with a feature of follow up. The quotation management system should be capable of reminding the agents to follow up with customers via periodic follow up notifications and reminders.
Built-in Email Send Feature: Agents should be able to send quotations to customers via email directly from the quotation management software, itself.
Customer Profiles: The quotation management system should be able to create, store and retrieve detailed customer profiles with their personal details, contact information and past quotation request and order history.
Agent Fee/Commission Customization: The QMS system should allow the management to create separate commission structures for each agent according to their performance and past activity.
Admin Panel: The admin panel should give the management a clear picture of the business, including all quotations generated, and other parameters to measure business performance. Also, the admin panel should allow the management to add/remove agents and manage entire business operations.
