Chapter 14: Working with Quotes

Sales Quotes are legally binding agreement between customer and vendor to deliver customer requested products in a specified timeframe at a predefined price. Your customers can place orders within the stipulated period (validity date) that has been specified in the quote otherwise you may cancel the quote or send a new quote extending the timeframe. In general Sales Quote contains the Quote number, date, line items (products) including the quantities and prices based on your Price Books, Terms & Conditions and others. In the Zoho CRM system you can create a quote directly from the potential or from the account page.

The Quotes home page contains,

• Quotes List
• Quote Reports
• Quick Create pane
• Search
• Alphabetical Search
• Custom Views
• Page Navigation

You can perform the following operations in Quotes module:

• Navigate quotes
• Search quotes (Basic or alphabetical options)
• Create List views
• Create new quotes (Form filling or duplicate options)
• Associate quotes with other records
• Print quotes details
• View reports
• Delete quotes (individually or in bulk)
• Customize Quotes

Navigating Quotes

You can navigate quotes available in the Quotes List.

To navigate quotes

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes Home page, under the Quotes List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End link to access the list of quotes.

Searching Quotes

You can search the quotes with basic details, such as Subject, Quote Name, Account Name, and Quote Stage. You can also search quotes alphabetically.

To search quotes

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes Home page, under the Quote Search section, do one of the following:
   • Enter the search criteria in Quote Name, Quote Code, and Qty/Unit and Unit Price and click the Search button. Or
   • Select one of the alphabetical search links.
3. In the Quotes List page, list of quotes are displayed as per search criteria.

Creating List Views

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permission)

In the Quote List you can create/modify/delete the custom views, sort columns in the list view (ascending/descending order), search the records available in the current list view. In addition, you can modify some of the columns in standard list views. By default, the following standard list views are available in the Quotes module:

• All Quotes
• My Quotes

Note: User created list views are displayed under User Created Views category in View drop-down list.

To create custom views

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes Home page, under Quote List section,click the Create View link.
   
   

   Note: Under the Quote List section some of the standard list views are displayed. You can only rearrange the order of columns and more columns.

   
   
3. In the Create New View page, do the following:
   • In the View Information section, specify name of the custom view in the View Name (mandatory) field. The custom view name appears in the View drop-down list. You can also set the custom view as a default list view by selecting the Set as Default View check box.
     
   • In the Specify Criteria section, specify the filter criteria. For more details refer to the Specifying List View Criteria section.
   • In the Choose Columns section, select the columns to be displayed in the List View. For more details refer to the Selecting List View Columns section.
   • In the Accessibility Details section, select the users to whom custom list view has to be enabled. For more details refer to the Enabling View Access section.
4. Click Save. The custom list view is displayed in the View drop-down list.

Creating Quotes

In Zoho CRM, you can store quote details by entering data in quote detail form.

Note: Some of the standard fields listed below may not be visible/editable depending on your organization business process and field-level security settings. In case your organization added/modified fields please contact your System Administrator for more details about usage of the other fields.

In the Quote: Edit form, you need to specify the quote-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various fields in the form.

List of Standard Quote-related Fields

To create quotes

1. Click the New Quote link.
2. In the Quote: page, specify the quote details.
   Note: Quote Name, Account Name, Billing Address, Shipping Address, and Product Details are mandatory field. Refer to the List of Standard Quote-related Fields section for more details.
3. Click Save to save the quote details.

Associating Quotes with Other Records

You can create a 360-degrees view of the quote to display all the associated details, such as sales orders, open activities, and history of the completed activities.

• Sales Orders: To display sales orders associated with quotes.
• Open Activities: To add tasks and events related to quotes.
• Closed Activities: To display the completed activities.

To associate quotes with other records

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes Home page, under the Quote List section, select the required quote.
3. In the Quote: <Quote Name> page, do the following:
   • Edit the Quote details.
   • Display the sales orders associated with quote.
   • Create activities, such as tasks and events (See chapter <No>: Managing Activities section for more details)
   • Display the completed activities.
4. You can close the Quote page once all the required information is updated for the quote.

Printing Quote Details

You can view a printable form and print the quote details using browser’s Print function.

To print quote details

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes: Home page under the Quotes List section, select the required quote.
3. In the Quote: < Quote Name> page click the Printable View button.
4. In the printable document page, click the Print Page button to print the document.

Viewing Reports

(Access Privilege: Read permission)

You can directly access some of the standard reports pertaining to quotes from the Quotes Reports section. By default, the following reports are displayed under Quotes module:

• Quotes by Accounts
• Converted Quotes
• Lost Quotes
• Quotes by Stage
• Open Quotes
  

To view quotes report

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes: Home page under the Quotes Reports section, click the required report link.
3. The report is displayed in Reports page, which can be further customized as per your requirements.

For more details about reports customization refer to Chapter <>: Working with Reports.

Deleting Quotes

Rarely, you may need to remove the unnecessary quotes, which are not tracked further. This will help you manage your quotes in a better way. You can delete quotes either individually or in bulk.

Warning: The deleted quotes are temporarily stored in Recycle Bin. If required you can restore the deleted quotes again. But if you delete quotes from Recycle Bin, you cannot restore again.

To delete quotes individually

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes: Home page, select the quote to be deleted.
3. In the Quote: <Quote Name> page, click Delete.
4. In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the quote permanently.

To delete quotes in bulk

1. Click the Quotes tab.
2. In the Quotes: Home page, go to the Quotes List section and select the quotes to be deleted using the Select check box.
3. Click the Delete button.
4. In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the selected quotes permanently.

Customizing Quotes

(Access Privilege: Customize ZohoCRM.com permission)

Customization of the Quotes module includes, renaming the tab name, modifying the pick list values in standard fields, adding new custom fields, modifying Quotes page layout, and show/hide the related list views according to your Sales process requirements.

For more details, refer to Chapter 24: Customizing Zoho CRM