Using the Quoting Wizard

ServiceCEO's Quoting Wizard enables you to quickly and easily create quotes A record of proposed work for a customer created either through the Call Center or the Quoting Wizard. From a quote, you can create an estimate, job or schedule. Not to be confused with an Estimate. for your customers, based on guidelines that an administrator has configured. All quotes are entered into a powerful database that enables you to track your quoting effectiveness.

Be aware that a quote A record of proposed work for a customer created either through the Call Center or the Quoting Wizard. From a quote, you can create an estimate, job or schedule. Not to be confused with an Estimate. is different then an estimate A internal record of proposed work for a customer. An estimate is identical to a job but, because it records proposed rather then planned work, it does not appear on the calendar. Not to be confused with a Quote.. In short, a quote is designed to be created over the phone through the Call Center or the stand-alone Quoting Wizard, while an estimate is designed to be an internal record. For more on estimates, please see the Estimates Overview section.

Note!

Note:
You must first configure the Quoting Wizard before you can use it. See the Configuring the Quoting Wizard topic.

You can access the Quoting Wizard from two places:

The Quoting Wizard can be accessed from many places in ServiceCEO by selecting Tools > Quoting Wizard or by pressing CTRL+Q. The first page of the Quoting Wizard appears.
From the Customer Quotes dialog box. Accessing the Quoting Wizard from here will open the second page of the Quoting Wizard.

The first page of the Quoting Wizard enables you select the customer for whom you want to create a quote:

You can use a customer already created in your database or create an entirely new customer by selecting the appropriate check box and entering search criteria into the Enter ZIP Code or Search fields. Note, however, that you can only create quotes for ZIP Codes that have an assigned zone. If a ZIP Code does not have a zone assigned, a warning will appear, stating that this area is not serviced. For details on assigning zones to ZIP Codes, see the Zone Manager section.

To create a quote for a new customer, type the customer's ZIP Code in the Enter ZIP Code field. A list of matching ZIP Codes and their corresponding Zones and Price Groups appear. Select the ZIP Code you want to use and click Next.

Note!

Note:
For more on creating Price Groups, see the Using Price Groups section. See the Zone Manager section to learn how to assign a price group to a Zone.

To create a quote for an existing customer, type some search criteria (customer name or customer address) in the Search field. A list of customers appears. Select the customer for whom you want to create a quote and click Next.

The second page of the Quoting Wizard appears:

All of the Job Types you created in the Quoting Wizard Setup will appear in this page. Select the check box corresponding to the type of quote you want to create. Click Next when done. The Third page of the Quoting Wizard appears:

These questions correspond to the questions you added to the job type in the Quoting Wizard Setup. Ask your customer these questions and record their answers. When complete, click Next. The fourth page of the Quoting Wizard appears.

This page contains a summary of the quote. All of the products or services listed are provided with default values (the values located in the Computed section) based upon the answers to the questions in the previous screen(s). From this page, you can perform several actions:

Click to display the tools and summary located on the left-hand side of previous pages of the Quoting Wizard.
Click to display the current Quote Summary view in a web page format (i.e., you can view it in your default browser).
Click to print the current view.
Double-click a product/service line to expand it. When expanded, you can see how the customer's answers affected the computed value for the product/service.
Change the value of the quote by adjusting fields in the Adjusted section. You can edit the Mins., Rate, and/or Sub. values for every product/service by clicking into the field and typing a new value. Doing so will automatically update the Total line.
Select the check boxes to add or remove a line item to or from the quote.
- The upper level check box (the one before the black line displaying the name of the Job Type) controls if the entire group will be added to the quote.
- The lower level check boxes (the ones before the specific questions) controls if that line item is added to the quote.

Tip!

Tip:
If you have changed the quote's Adjusted values and want to reset the Adjusted values to reflect the Computed values, click .

When you have completed defining the quote's final values, click Next. The fifth page of the Quoting Wizard appears.

This page serves as the final summary of the quote. If you need to make any changes to the quote, click Back, make the necessary adjustments, and click Next to return to the summary page.

By default, the quote will expire in a month. To extend this period, select the date on which the quote will expire from the Quote expires on calendar box.

If the customer accepts the quote, select the Customer accepts quote check box. This fact will be recorded in the Customer Quotes dialog box.

Next, click Save. The Quote is saved. It will now appear in the customer's record. The Sixth page of the quoting wizard appears.

Caution!

Caution:
After the quote is saved, you cannot edit the quote. You can, however, duplicate the quote and edit the new one. See the Customer Quotes section for more.

Select the option button corresponding to the type of job you want to create:

Generate a single schedule for ALL Job Types. Selecting this option will create one single job for all of the quoted job types. If a product or service appears in multiple job types, its values will be merged together in the new job. Note that this option will only be enabled if you have quoted multiple job types.
Generate a schedule ONLY for the Job Type selected below. Select the job type for which you want to create a job.

Regardless of the option you select, and click Create Schedule to create a job from the quote. A new job record appears. Create the job in the usual manner. See the Creating Jobs section for details.

To close the Quoting Wizard without creating a job, click Exit.