Making a quotation template in Pastel

[Martinco]

How would you do the following ?

We sell among others, trailer parts/spares to enable a customer to build his/her own trailer.
Now this involves every time such a customer walks in and wants a quote, to go thru the whole list of items and entering these on the quote form which takes some time especially when there are 5 people standing to be served.
I would like to be able to "recall/import" a pre-completed quote form with all the goodies on there and simply delete the inappropriate ones. That way I know that the quote is complete and the current prices are correct.
Bear in mind that the quotation number must increment and cannot be the same number every time otherwise I shall not be able to recall a specific quotation.

Hi Neville..............where are you ?

[Neville Bailey]

Create a "pre-completed" quotation in Pastel (with all the possible goodies in it, as you put it), then export that quotation by clicking on the Batch button at the bottom left and then click on Export. Save the exported quotation in a convenient location.

Then, whenever you need to prepare a new quotation, open the quotation screen, click on Batch...Import, select the saved quotation file and then edit it once it has been imported.

[cagenuts]

There's possibly a better way assuming you have Pastel Partner.

Create a quotation in Pastel for every likely item for that customer making sure the selling prices are correct. In Pastel there will be a Quotation saved called 'QU100008' (or whatever numbering system you have) and this will be linked to a specific customer.

Then when the customer walks in, you go into 'Process Customer' and choose 'Quotation' and then click on Global to look up the outstanding quotation for that customer. Then once opened choose 'Link/Create' which then takes you into a Pro Forma/Sales Order screen where you can tick/untick the appropriate items for that customer. Choose 'Leave the original document in place' or else you will need to recreate the quotation.

If he then wants to order, simply convert this Sales Order/Pro Forma Invoice to a Tax Invoice.

Again, when you convert to a Tax Invoice, choose 'Leave the original document in place' in order for you to have a record of what Quotations/Sales Orders you did. Strictly speaking the Quotation number stays the same but you can retain the Sales Orders for easy future reference.

Make sense?

If you do choose the Sales Order route, make sure you don't reserve Inventory from the Sales Order.

[Martinco]

Then, whenever you need to prepare a new quotation, open the quotation screen, click on Batch...Import, select the saved quotation file and then edit it once it has been imported.

Ok, but will the quotation number increment so I can save the new quote for the new customer ?

[Neville Bailey]

Ok, but will the quotation number increment so I can save the new quote for the new customer ?

Yes - when you import the template quotation, Pastel will allocate the next quotation document number to the imported quote.

[Martinco]

Great !.......................thanks

[Martinco]

Not out of the woods yet................When I select the quote and do the export thingy, I get 1590 exported quotes !

[Martinco]

Ok, to answer my own problem above..................

From the active company, make a copy ( New ) with a new name ( Quotes )
In the new company, go to Process..........Quotations, open the first quotation and then at the bottom click Delete/Insert and then "delete whole batch"
Your quote file should now be empty.
Make the quote template as required and then under the "Batch" tab, export the quote to i.e. desktop and when you need to give a person the "standard" quote, just import the file from the desktop again and viola ! you have the correct info.
You can now delete the "Quote" company if disk space is an issue, or just leave it for future changes i.e. prices.

[SSS100]

Will above work in Pstel Evolution as well?

[Martinco]

Neville should be able to answer this 100% but personally I do not see why not !

[Neville Bailey]

Will above work in Pstel Evolution as well?

I don't support Evolution so I would not know if or how it is possible, but I would be surprised if it cannot be done.

[Martinco]

Just a further issue on the export and import of data in Pastel........... especially inventory.

I did the procedure and, low and behold, on importing the same exported data, I got a string of errors during the import function.
It turns out that the data (Code and product description ) should NOT contain any (or some) special characters.
I noticed the especially the " sign confuses the export function into moving data into the wrong columns and as soon as you import these again, you get errors.
So, just be aware when you create inventory to steer clear of using special characters.