COM: Create a Quote

If the customer requests a quote, your COM (Customer Order Management) work flow begins by creating a quote. Later, when the customer accepts the quote, you'll change the quote into an order.

  1. In Order Entry, press F6-Estimate to start a quote.

  2. Enter the items you want to place on the quote.

  3. If you want to post an item not in your Inventory file ("non-stock" or "NIF" item):

    1.  Enter the item number and press Enter.

    2. Answer Yes when asked if you want to add the non-stock item to the order. The posting area expands.

    3. Fill in the fields in the posting area.

If you want to post an item that exists in your Inventory as a non-stock (i.e. you need to special order the item), press F4 and the posting area expands as in the example above. Fill in the fields and press Enter. Since the item exists in your inventory, it posts as a "special order" item rather than a "non-stock."

  1. (Optional) To add a subtotal anywhere in the order, press Menu (or use the dash on the keypad) while your cursor is in the Item (SKU) field, and select 7-Insert Group Subtotal. Enter a caption (description) for the subtotal in the box that displays, and press Enter. The subtotals and your captions will print on the quote.

The option "Enhanced Form sort order for order documents" (ID# 7525) must be set to N ("by line") for subtotals/captions to print.

  1. Total and save the quote.

  2. If the customer accepts the quote, retrieve it and make any necessary changes to the line items. To ensure that costs are still current, you can re-cost the entire quote. Then, create an order from the quote using one of the following methods:

  1. Now that you have generated an order, enter the delivery date and any special instructions on the Header screen. The other fields on the Header screen default to the values from the customer's account in Customer Maintenance, but you can change them if necessary. When finished entering/changing fields on the Header screen, click Change to save your changes.

  2. Total and save the order. The system checks to see if sufficient quantities are available of the items on the order.

Option 5456, "Display Source Menu when?", determines the behavior of auto-backordering.

  1. If option 5456 is set to B or I, quotes-to-order created via menu option K or via the bid-to-order process will auto-backorder any insufficient quantities. Furthermore, if the option "Automatically place orders on Buyer's List" (ID# 5458) is set to Y, X or A, the auto-backordered items are placed on the Buyer's List; if set to N, these items will not be sourced to any specific order.

  2. If option 5456 is set to N, the system assumes you will not be sourcing insufficient quantities, so the quantities ordered are placed in the quantity field with no automatic backordering.

  1. At any time during the order creation/sourcing process, you can save, print, and recall the order as many times as you like. When you're ready to ship the order, go to the overview topic "Ship Order." From there, you can read the topics related to preparing for shipment (adding freight, invoicing order).

If you added any NIF/special order items to the quote (in step 3 above), the following occurs when you change the quote into an order: