From an emailed quote request to a priced draft quote

Why emailed lists eat the morning

An email request feels quick because it is already typed. In practice it is often the slowest kind to quote. The customer writes the way they talk: "2 boxes of 4x40 screws", "the usual back boxes", "20 lengths of 22mm". There are no product codes, the quantities sit in different places on each line, and the delivery note is mixed into the list. Someone at the desk reads the email, opens the quote screen, searches for every product, checks the account price and types the quote back out.

When five of those arrive before nine o'clock, the last one is answered after lunch. By then the contractor may have asked someone else. The aim here is simple: the typing and searching are done before your team opens the request, so the person who knows the trade spends the time on the decisions.

How it works

1. Send. On Starter and Team you email the request in: forward the customer's email, or paste the list into a new one. The customer does not need to change how they write to you.
2. Read. The text of the email body is read line by line.
3. Match. Each line is compared with your own catalogue. Where the customer used your product code, the match is direct. Where they used words, the closest products in your catalogue are shown as ranked candidates, and the reviewer confirms the right one.
4. Price. Each matched line is priced from your own price data for that customer: the customer's own price, then the customer group price, then the list price, with quantity breaks and price dates.
5. Flag. Lines with no clear match, no clear quantity, a unit that does not fit the product, or a missing or tied price are flagged with the reason. Nothing is guessed.
6. Approve. A person on your team reviews the draft, settles the flagged lines and approves it. On Starter, drafts come back within 1 working day.

What is read from the email

This page is about the list typed into the body of the email. Every line of text with something on it becomes a line on the draft. That keeps the method honest and easy to check: nothing from the email is silently dropped. It also means a greeting, a delivery instruction or a signature can turn up as a line. Such a line matches no product, so it is flagged, and the reviewer deletes it in a second.

A request can carry from 1 to 200 lines. If the customer sends the list as a file instead, a spreadsheet, a PDF or a photo, that file is read as its own format. Uncertain lines are flagged for a person to check, as described on the Excel takeoff, PDF list and photo of a list pages.

What I do not do

• I do not connect to your mailbox or read your inbox. Only the requests you choose to email in are read.
• I do not reply to your customer. The approved quote comes back to your team as an A4 PDF with your logo, plus a UTF-8 CSV of the approved lines, and your team sends it from your own email as usual.
• I do not guess. A line that could be two products, or a product with no valid price for that customer, stays flagged until a person decides.

Every export is recorded with a fingerprint of the file, and nothing is sent without approval.

An example

A heating engineer emails at 7.40: "Morning, can you price this for collection Thursday. 10 x 15mm copper 3m, 20 x 15mm elbows, 2 x 22mm isolating valves, 1 x magnetic filter 22mm, the usual flux. Cheers, Dave."

• The copper, the elbows and the valves come up with candidates from your own range; once the reviewer confirms each one, it is priced at Dave's account price.
• "Magnetic filter 22mm" matches three filters in your range, so it is flagged with the candidates for your team to choose.
• "The usual flux" names no product, so it is flagged; your team knows which one Dave buys.
• "Morning, can you price this" and "Cheers, Dave" match nothing and are flagged, then deleted.

Your team confirms matches and settles two questions instead of typing the whole quote.

Pricing

Starter is £390 a month for up to 20 requests, and Team is £790 a month for 3 users and up to 200 requests, both with no setup fee. The full rollout is £1,290 a month for up to 500 requests and 10,000 line items, or £3,900 a month for up to 1,500 requests and 30,000 line items, plus £5,950 onboarding including the £1,490 paid pilot. How the paid pilot works ↗

Frequently asked questions