QuoteMaker Pro
By Steve Weintraut LLC



Welcome to QuoteMaker Pro for the iPad!

QuoteMaker Pro is a powerful tool for anyone involved in a wide variety of sales related professions. Unlike a lot of other sales automation solutions, QuoteMaker Pro gives you precise control over the appearance of your sales quotation as well as finely tuned control over your profit margin for each individual item on the proposal.

Powerful Profit Margin Control

QuoteMaker Pro supports both cost-plus and list-minus sell price computations. You can mix and match them on a product by product basis. You can also specify profit margins on a global scope for an entire quote, for groups of items as a subset of a quote, or on a line item level for each individual item.

Drop and Drop Customization

QuoteMaker Pro allows you to precisely control the appearance of items in your quote. Using your iPad, you can drag and drop items to reorganize them in an order that will make the most sense to your client.

Custom Categories

QuoteMaker Pro lets you group related line items as categories in your quote. This allows you to not only organize long quotes into a more easily understandable format, but it also gives you the ability to adjust pricing of items in a group all at once. You can also temporarily hide the items of a category or categories to move them out of them way when you are developing a complex proposal.

Optional Items are Wonderful

QuoteMaker Pro also lets you add items to a quote as an optional item. This will show the item on the proposal, but clearly display it as an optional item that is not included as part of the total price. This allows you to quote a customer on a specific item, but also give them other choices if they would like to upgrade that particular component to something better.

Not an Island

QuoteMaker Pro has the ability to import data from external sources via tab delimited or comma delimited files. Even if the file is not in the proper order, QuoteMaker Pro allows you to drag and drop the import order of any compatible file, and also let’s you choose which fields are imported. Files can be imported via iTunes running on your desktop machine, or by opening a file attached to an email from your iPad’s email client. You can even choose to let QuoteMaker Pro use the file to update your existing price list based on matching product numbers. You can also email or print your quotes with just the tap of a button.

Preferences are a Great Way to Get Started
When you first open QuoteMaker Pro, the first place you should visit is the preferences area…

Company Name : This should always be filled out since it is used whenever emailing or printing a quote.

Header Text : This is an optional text item that will appear at the top right of the first page of your quote. It is a great place to put a company slogan or a proposal title in. Please try printing or email a quote to see how it is used.

Footer Text: This appears at the bottom of the quote. This is very useful for including terms and conditions for a quote.

Default Tax Rate, Default Shipping Charge, and Shipping is Taxable : These should all be self explanatory. Note that you can change these for each quote. These are just default values to use when you create a new quote.

Default Terms : This is optional, but many times sales applications require something like “Net 30”. Once again, this is just the default value. It can also be changed on a quote by quote basis.

ID Prefix : Every quote is given a sequential ID number. The ID prefix is useful in cases where multiple people in the same company are using QuoteMaker Pro. You could, for instance, put your initials in the ID prefix field. Now instead of seeing a quote ID of 10001, you would see SW10001.

Global Margin : Margins in QuoteMaker Pro are very powerful. You can have cost-plus or list-minus margins. This is the default margin used when creating a new quote. You can then adjust the margin on a quote level, category level, or individual line item level.

Company Logo : You may include a company logo on printed copies of your quotes. You can import the logo directly from your iPad’s camera (if it has one), or from your photo library.

Title Text Color and Title Background Color : These allow you to have control over the appearance of titles in your printed and emailed copies of your quote.

Quote List

After visiting the preferences section, you should take a moment to go right into the main quote screen. When first installing QuoteMaker Pro, a simple, single quote is created to help you see how the software works, along with a small list of products to work with. Once you are done exploring, you can delete this quote along with the products in the product database.

The screen above is what you will see first. Its pretty simple to understand…it’s just a list of the quotes that you have created. The back button at the top left takes you back to the main screen. There is a delete button on the right to allow you to delete one or more quotes, and a button to create a new quote from scratch. There is also a search bar where you can search for quotes by entering some text to search for. In the demo data that is included when you first install QuoteMaker Pro you should see the one, single, quote shown above. Tap on it to see it in detail…

Quote Detail

The above screen is where you will spend most of your time using QuoteMaker Pro, and it has a lot of powerful features to review.

At the top left, you have buttons to print or email your quote. Simple Enough.

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At the top right, things get a little more interesting….

Actions : This button contains 2 useful features: grab and duplicate. The grab function allows you to copy a group of items (a category) from another quote. If you sold a particular configuration to someone a month ago, and want to use it again for another customer, you can “grab” just that part of a quote to use in your new quote. You could also setup a fake quote and put commonly used configurations (kits, assemblies, etc) in it so they are easy to find and “grab” later on. The duplicate function is a little more obvious, it simply duplicates the current quote you are looking at. This allows you to make multiple versions of the same quote quickly and easily.

Rearrange : This is a simple but powerful feature…it allows you no not only delete items but also more importantly it allows you to change their order of appearance in the quote. You can drag and drop them into any order you like. And you can drag and drop both line items and entire categories of items. This allows you to format your quote to make the most sense to the customer. Important : When you are done rearranging your quote, tap the rearrange button again to exit that mode and return to the regular quote view.

Note : If you aren’t familiar with it already, the standard iPad drag and drop control is over on the right hand side, you might need to get used to grabbing it just right with your finger in order to get the hang of it. Try a few times and you will quickly learn how to use it.

Add Item : Well, this is pretty simple. This button allows you to add a new item to the quote from your product database. More on that in just a moment….

Billing and Shipping Info

You can edit the billing or shipping info simply by tapping on the corresponding area of the quote detail screen.

You can either type in the info yourself or use the “Choose from Address Book” option to retrieve it for you.

Quote Settings

By clicking on the “Quote Info” section of the quote detail screen you can edit the settings that were assigned to the quote when you first created it.

Most of the settings here were covered in the overview of QuoteMaker’s preference screen previously. At the top of the quote settings detail screen however, there is something new. It is a display of the overall total statistics for the quote, including total cost, total sell price, total list price (where applicable) and the final cost plus and/or list minus margin that was achieved. Please note that the total sell price in this screen does not including tax or shipping. The true total is displayed on the quote detail screen along with all of the line items and billing and shipping information. The default margin is set at the time of quote creation based on the application preferences you have setup. You can change this on a quote by quote basis. This default margin will only apply to line items which have their margin to set default and whose containing category is also set to default. (more on this later).

Going Back to the Quote Detail Screen

If you cancel out of the quote settings dialog you’ll wind up back at the quote detail screen we were in earlier. We’ve already covered the top part of the quote detail screen, so now let’s look at where all of the line items are. The first thing you should see is pictured above. It’s a category that contains a group of line items. The little green arrow here is important, it let’s you collapse and expand these items to move them out of the way when you are working on a large complex quote. Tapping on the green icon will hide all the items in that category. Tapping on it again will show them.

In the image above, all categories and their line items are visible.

In the image above, the category “Workstation 2” has it’s line items hidden from view

Category Detail

If you click on a category anywhere other than the little green expand/collapse icon you will bring up the category detail editor.

The category detail editor is very similar to the quote settings editor, except its data only applies to a specific category of line items within a quote. At the top of the screen you can see a quick summary of the cost, sell price, list price, cost plus margin, and list minus margin for the items in the category. You can also change the title of the category and its default margin. Line Items assigned to a category will only use the default margin for the category if their margin it set to use the default value. Similarly, if a category’s margin is set to use the default value, it will get its margin data from the quote that contains it.

Line Item Detail

If you click on a line item for a quote, you will see its detail screen.

If you click on a line item for a quote, you will see its detail screen. Much of this data is brought over from the product database when you assign a product to a quote. And most of this data is self explanatory. Here are a few items that might benefit from some explanation.

There is an area to the right of the product number where you can tap to add a photo of the product from your device’s built -in camera or from your photo library. You can also store photos in the product database, but this feature allows you to have a custom photo for a specific instance of a product in a single quote.

The margin field is similar to that of the margin field in the category screen and the quote screen discussed earlier. You can assign either a cost plus margin or a list minus margin to a product. If you set the product’s margin to “default”, then the product looks at the category it is assigned to in order to find its margin. If the category that the product is assigned to also has its margin set to default, the product then looks to the quote that contains it in order to find it’s margin.

The “Freeze” option is useful when you are changing either the cost or list price of an item. Normally when you change the cost or list price of an item, the sell price changes based on the margin. With the freeze option turned on, when you change a cost or list price, the corresponding margin is changed and the sell price remains the same.

Finally, the “Optional” flag is a very useful feature. If you set an item on a quote to be “Optional” it is displayed on the quote, but it is not included in the total price for that quote. It is also formatted differently than a regular line item to indicate that it is an optional item. This is useful in case where you would quote a customer on a 24” monitor, but also want to include a 27” monitor as an optional upgrade.

Adding Items to a Quote

Going back to the top right of the quote screen, where we were previously, let’s revisit the “Add Item” button….

When you tap on the “Add Item” button, you will see the Product Database overview shown above. The top right of navigation bar of the screen contains two buttons. One to edit the product list (delete items), and another to add a new product to the product database.

Adding a New Product
If you click on the “Add New Product” button, you see a screen similar to the one below…

This screen is very similar to the quote line item detail screen discussed previously. To review, here are some key points that we reviewed earlier.

To the right of the Product #, is an area you can tap to select a photo to assign to this product. Unlike the line item detail editor we discussed earlier, which only edits an item for a particular quote, this photo will be stored in the product database, and will be included with any quote it is assigned to later on. Be careful! Too many photos can fill up your iPad’s storage space!

Right below the Product Number field is the Product Type field. QuoteMaker Pro uses this field to let you quickly select small subsets of your product database for easy viewing. You could, for instance, have a product type called “Printers”, and in the product search screen you will learn about shortly, you can quickly show just these products. You can have up to 250 unique product types for use in your database. While you can enter these from this screen, it is really much easier to prepare this data on your desktop machine and import the file into your device using QuoteMaker Pro’s file import feature.

We’ve talked about margin values earlier, but let’s review them quickly once more. You can use both cost plus and list minus margins in QuoteMaker Pro. If you select your margin as “Default”, the margin will be calculated based on whatever category the item is assigned to your quote. If the category it is assigned to also has its margin value set to “Default”, then the margin will be based on the margin value of the quote itself.

Also as discussed previously, the freeze flag is used so that if you change a cost or list price, the margin is changed and the sell price is held constant.

Back to the Product Search Screen

There is a search bar directly below the navigation bar, just like in the quote list view, that let’s you search for products based on their description.

A new user interface element is introduced here though, and it’s the product type filter, which is located to the right of the search bar.

If you click on the product type filter, you’ll see a popup list similar to the one show below…

Selecting any of the options in this list will filter your product list to show only those products with that particular product type assignment. As mentioned above, you can have up to 250 unique product types in your product database. Keep in mind that the product type filter works in conjuction with any text you have entered in the search bar. So if you want to see all items of a particular product type, make sure your search bar has no text in it. Similarly, if you want to search for text in your entire product database, make sure the current product type filter is set to “All Product Types”.

Adding Products to a Quote

To the left of every product in the product search screen, there is a little green “plus” icon.

Clicking on this icon will allow you to add an item to a category of the currently active quote….

Notice in this list of categories that there is both an edit button and an add button there too. This let’s you manage the categories for you’re existing quote right from this screen. You can delete an existing category or add a new one. Tapping on any category in this list will add the selected product to the current quote and bring you back to the product search screen so you can quickly add more if you need to.

Just like the other screens we’ve discussed previously, if you tap anywhere on a product listing other than the green “plus” button, you will bring up the detail screen for that product.

Back to the Main Screen


Going back to the main screen, there are a few other options that we haven’t covered yet.

Default Categories

The Default Categories editor allows you to specify what categories will be automatically added to each and every new quote that is created. Once a quote is created, you can add and edit categories to that specific quote, but these default categories allow you to save time by having a group of categories available immediately. If a category in a quote doesn’t have any products assigned to it, it won’t appear anywhere on the quote, so you are free to add as many default categories as you want and only use the ones you need for each specific quote. There is an edit button to delete existing categories from the list as well as an “+” (add) button to create new categories. If you tap on any existing default category, you’ll see the following detail screen.

Product Database

Normally, you will access the product database when adding items to a quote, but this button on the main screen also takes you to the product database in case you just want to lookup a quick price about a particular product without having to create a new quote in order to do so.

Data Import

QuoteMaker Pro allows you to import data either via iTunes or via an email attachment. If you choose to open a file to import from your email software, then QuoteMaker Pro opens up directly into it’s import mode. If you are sharing an import file via iTunes, then you would click on this button to see it.

If you are trying to import a file from your email inbox, then you just need to hold your finger down on the attachment for a moment and then you will see a list of apps that can handle the file you have selected. Tap on the "Open In..." button and you should see QuoteMaker Pro in the next list that pops up.

This screen shows a list of any importable files you have available for QuoteMaker Pro. As in most screens, there is an edit button to allow you to delete any files you no longer need. By clicking on a file you will be presented with a preview screen so you can verify the contents of the file.

Once you have verified that the file you have selected is in the correct format, you can tap the “Import” button at the top right of the screen to continue…

The next screen you will then see allows you to fine tune your file import. First and foremost, you need to indicate to QuoteMaker Pro whether this is a comma delimited or tab delimited file.

The left column in the screen shows you what the first row of your import data file looks like.

The second column is a list of fields that you can import data into. The fields with a checkmark next to them will be assigned data. If for some reason you don’t want to import a particular field you can simplly remove the checkmark.

If the data in your import file is not in the correct order….you can click on the “Change Field Import Order” and then drag and drop the field names into the correct order to match your import file.

Finally, before you actually perform your import, you need to tell QuoteMaker Pro how to handle the import data….

Update : Click this option if you want QuoteMaker Pro to match any records with similar product numbers and update the existing record rather than add a new one.

Add : Using this option will cause all records in the import file to be added as new records to your product database. If you rely on unique product numbers, you should avoid this option as you could wind up with more than one record with the same product number if you import more than one file.

Delete : This will tell QuoteMaker Pro to delete all existing records in your database before importing the new file. Be careful with this option!

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the time to read all of the documentation for QuoteMaker Pro. We hope you find it to be a useful and productive tool. We welcome any comments, questions or suggestions. Thanks again for your support!