Quotes

A quote is the agreement in writing before you touch the bike: this work, these parts, this total. You want one when the job isn't trivial, when the customer needs to think about it, or when you want a ceiling on what gets spent.

It's also the first thing you do in CrankPal, and it's designed to be doable empty-handed: you can write it with no customer and without having filled in your workshop profile. We ask for what's missing later, at the moment it's actually needed. If this is your first day, the whole path is in Your first 15 minutes.

Every quote has a number (P-0001, P-0002, …) and a status. The page lists them all, with filters at the top: All, Draft, Sent, Accepted, Rejected, Converted, plus a no customer filter to find the drafts you opened on the fly and the Active / Archived pair, which keeps the documents you've put away out of the everyday list (how to archive). Clicking a row opens the lines inline, without leaving the page.

When a quote is worth making#

Not every job needs one: for a service booked in advance you just open a work order.

A quote earns its keep when:

• the customer has to decide between repairing and replacing the bike;
• the amount is big enough to deserve a written "yes";
• you want work added later to require their explicit approval. That's the most useful side effect: an order born from a quote treats every subsequent line as an extra to be approved.

Creating the quote#

The New quote button opens the editor.

1. Pick the customer and the bike, or go on without

   The customer is still the first field, and picking one is the recommended route: once chosen, the bike list fills with theirs. But it isn't required — next to it there's Continue without a customer, and the quote is created all the same. What changes is explained in the next section.

2. Set the validity

   The Valid until field is the date after which the quote no longer stands. It's optional, but it's what saves you the "the price you gave me six months ago" phone call.

3. Add the lines

   Each line is either Labour or a Part. On labour lines the field suggests entries from your service catalog and, when you pick one, fills the price in for you. On part lines the field searches your stock by name or code and shows quantity on hand and price.

   If the part isn't in stock (or isn't the right one for this customer), below your own items the dropdown shows parts from the universal catalogue carried by distributors operating in your country: pick one and the line arrives with brand, name and list price, labelled with where it came from. Prices and availability are still to be checked with the distributor before you confirm to the customer: the catalogue says the distributor carries the item, not that they have it on the shelf today.

   If it's nowhere to be found, Register this part records it once and from then on you find it by searching — and with a brand and a code it merges with what other workshops have registered. If you don't have the code with the customer in front of you, Not sure yet: leave it like this puts the line on the quote without losing the part. With the Inventory module, registering also asks what becomes of the part — you have it, or it needs ordering — and from there it enters the To order list.

   If the customer brings the part themselves, tick Customer-supplied on the part line: the description becomes free text (no stock lookup) and the price is locked at zero — you quote the labour only. Declaring it here pays off: by the time the quote becomes a work order the part is already known, so the customer-supplied parts waiver comes up automatically at check-in. If you add the line after work has started, check-in has already been signed and the waiver has to be collected separately.

4. Apply a discount, if needed

   The discount applies to the whole quote: as a percentage or as a fixed amount.

5. Write the notes

   Notes for the customer appear on the quote and in their app. Internal notes stay inside the workshop: the customer never sees them, they're for you and your colleagues ("part to be ordered", "non-standard spokes").

The 👁 button next to the lines shows or hides the purchase cost and margin on parts. It's a single switch for the whole app: keep it off when the screen is facing the customer.

The jobs the field offers come from your service catalog, which every workshop finds already preloaded with the most common work. Names, prices and durations are a starting point: personalising them once saves time on every quote after that.

The quote without a customer#

A quote without a customer is a quote in every respect: it has a number, lines, discount, notes and a total, and it shows in the list labelled no customer. It's for the two cases where you don't have the name yet: day one, when your customer list is empty, and at the counter, when somebody asks "what would it cost me" before telling you who they are.

While the customer is missing, though, there are three things the app won't let you do — and it tells you at creation time, not when you press the button:

• send it, and therefore have it accepted from the customer area, signature included;
• print it;
• convert it into a work order.

Two things that happen by themselves are skipped too: the automatic reminder to a customer who hasn't replied, and the quote's place in their record.

It isn't a dead end. On a quote without a customer the detail page carries an Attach customer button, which links it to an existing customer or creates one on the spot — and from that moment it's a quote like any other. Otherwise we ask you for the customer ourselves, at the first action that needs one: see below.

Sending it, printing it and following up#

A newly created quote is a Draft: it exists only for you.

Send to customer moves it to Sent and makes it appear in the customer's app, with a notification.

Print produces the PDF to hand over at the counter or attach to an email of your own: same lines, same total, with your workshop's letterhead at the top.

Once it's sent, it goes one of two ways:

• the customer decides, accepting or rejecting from their customer area: the acceptance signature stays recorded on the quote;
• you decide, with the Accepted / Rejected buttons, when the yes came in person or over the phone. In that case your name and the moment of the decision are recorded.

Either way, opening the quote tells you who decided and when.

If the customer doesn't reply, CrankPal sends one email reminder: when the quote is about to expire, or three days after sending it if you set no expiry date. The email carries the quote number, date and total, plus an Open the quote button that takes the customer straight to that quote in their customer area — if their session has expired they're asked to sign in and the quote opens right after. The reminder goes out once per quote: there's nothing to set up, and no way to send a second one from the workshop app (for a second nudge, write to the customer from the inbox).

Turning it into a work order#

The Convert to order button is on every draft, not only on accepted quotes: at the counter the yes almost always comes out loud, and forcing everyone through digital acceptance would be play-acting. Clicking it:

1. creates a new work order for that customer and bike;
2. copies every quote line into it, with quantities, prices and any discount;
3. moves the quote to Converted and keeps it linked to the order;
4. takes you straight to the order it just created.

On a quote that is not accepted, converting asks for a confirmation first: doing it skips the digital acceptance and any customer signature. If the yes really did happen, you confirm and carry on.

Converting also needs the customer: if the quote hasn't got one, the same guided window as sending opens. The reason is that the order inherits the quote's recipient. If what you want is to work with no customer at all, don't convert: open the order directly, as explained in Work orders.

From then on the quote can't be edited, and its row in the list shows a button through to the order. On the order, the activity timeline carries an Order generated from quote entry with the reference and the name of whoever converted it.

Archiving closed quotes#

After a few months the quote list is mostly finished business: rejected, expired, already turned into orders. Archiving gets them out of the way without touching them.

Archiving is not deleting and not a change of status: the document stays exactly as it was — an archived accepted quote is still accepted — and nothing changes for the customer. In the app and in the customer area the quote looks the same as before, and searching by number still finds it.

There are two ways:

• one at a time — open the quote by clicking its row and press Archive at the bottom of the detail (Restore lives in the same place);
• in bulk — the Archive closed ones button at the top of the page puts away, in one go, every rejected, expired, converted and superseded quote you're looking at. It leaves drafts, sent and accepted ones alone: there's still something to do on those.

To see them again, use the Archived filter at the top of the page. From there you can restore them whenever you need to.

Common problems#

An accepted quote becomes an order: the rest of the work is described in Work orders.