Your Questions
When we first developed the ecommerce system, it was a basic shopping cart system. The companies who were helping with the development at the time, pointed out that a simple shopping cart system was not fulfilling their needs. We liased with each company and found that they wanted to ask their clients questions to better understand their requirements. They wanted the ability to ask questions then generate a quotation from those questions. We started compiling a list of questions that could be hard coded into the Enquiry section. We stumbled across a problem as each company wanted to ask their clients completly different questions. Some companies wanted in depth enquiry forms and some wanted short and basic enquiry forms.
We decided the best course of action was to build an enquiry question builder, that would let you build your own enquiry forms that would suit your business on an individual basis for every sector within each industry your company is in. This gave our customers the power to change the system to suit their needs exactly. You can build your own enquiry forms that can then be turned into a custom quotation for your client.
Enquiries
When the client first registers with the client portal, they are taken through an enquiry wizard, asking them your questions from the enquiry question builder above. Once they have answered the questions an enquiry is generated for you to review.
From within the Enquiry review page, you have the ability to Delete the enquiry, you also have the ability to quickly generate a draft quotation for your client based on the answers they have given.
The quotation reference numbers are automatically generated, speeding up the quotation addition process. You can set your own Reference number templates from within the Settings page.
Quotations
Once you have created a draft quotation you are taken to the ‘Quotation Generator’ page. This page allows you to pre-setup the job details, financials and team in advance of the quotation being accepted. These details are used as the basis for the job information when the system automatically generates a job. The job is only automatically generated if the quotation is accepted and/or the invoice is paid.
You have the ability to turn off the auto job generation system from within the settings page. Turning this off would require you to manually review the quotation and payment details before manually accepting the job into the system.
The Quotations text area is used to explain in detail what the quotation entails in text format. The area includes a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, so you can add styling and formatting to get your Quotation looking just how you like it.
Quotations Items are used to give an Itemised breakdown of exactly what the quotation entails. The totals are automatically calculated by your quantity and price of each item.
Tax and the locality Tax rate settings which will affect the Quotations can be changed from within the settings page.
Once you “Send Quote” an email is instantly sent to your client advising them to login and review the quotation, keeping the quote behind a password wall and confidential for only the client to view.
If you make a mistake after you have sent the quote, you can simply “Retract Quote”, this sends out another email adivising there has been a mistake and the quotation has been retracted for modification. You can also retract a quote from a client, if they havent accepted it, to prevent them from proceeding with the job. This can be useful if your work capacity is full or you simply can not complete the job for the client and wish to retract your offer.
Invoice Payment Terms – You have the ability to choose client invoice payment terms from the settings page, this changes when the invoice is set to be due for the client.
Payment terms can be set for Private and Commercial clients seperately, you can have your commercial clients paying on a monthly invoice arrangement while requiring your Private clients to pay upfront.
If you choose an upfront payment, the client can not accept the quotation without first paying the invoice upfront. If they do not pay the Quotation invoice, the quotation remains pending and they can not proceed.
You can also choose invoice visibility settings, setting if the client can view the invoice before or after the due date. Settings the option to Before means the client can pay upfront and even before the job has started. After the due date means the client only view and pay on or after the day it is due.
Archive – You may archive a Quotation at anytime, this lets you keep your Quotation list clean and tidy, and store old quotations for your records. This keeps the quotation area clean as you are only dealing with active quotations. If you archive a quotation, you then have the ability to delete the quotation completely if you so wish.
Shopping Cart
We also retained the shopping cart system, just incase you would want to sell any physical / digital products or services that can be listed as a set price. To use the shopping cart simply turn it on from within the settings page.
E-Commerce Gateways
As part of both the Shopping Cart system and the Enquiry to Quotation system, we have integrated both Stripe and Paypal payment gateways, this covers you for all card types and all currencies from around the world.
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