Creating a quote

We recommend starting every project with a quote. This way, you can agree on the scope and price with the client, estimate the delivery cost, and set clear expectations for the internal team. The data on the quote feeds into project reports, enabling you to compare your quoted estimates with the actual results in real time.

This article will walk you through the process of creating a new quote. 

To learn about the basics of quotes in Scoro, see Quotes – an overview.

1. Views in Scoro where you can create a quote

There are several views in Scoro where you can create a new quote:

• From the site menu – click the quick actions button on the right side of your site’s menu and select New quote. This is the easiest option, accessible from any view.
  
• From the Quotes module – go to the Quote list tab and click the +New button.
  
• From the Pipeline module – click the + New button.
  
• From the contact (company or person) card – click the New quote button.
  
• From the project detailed view – go to the Finances tab and click the New quote button.
  

Regardless of which view you’re using to create a new quote, the quote modify view will be opened, and you can start compiling your quote.

2. Adding the general quote details

The top part of a quote holds the general quote details, which include:

• Client-facing information – client details, quote creation date, and due date, which indicates the validity period of the quote
• Information available solely for the internal team – estimated closing date, currency, status, price list, and pricing method.

Mandatory fields are indicated with an orange dot indicator – they must be filled out to save the quote.

Here’s how to fill out the various general information fields:

• Client – link the quote with a client.
  • If the client is already in your database, you can simply select them from the Client dropdown field.
  • To add a new client, enter the company name in the Client field and click the plus icon in this field to fill in additional details without leaving the quote view.
    
• Quote name – Scoro will automatically fill out the quote name in a ‘Company name + quote’ format as soon as you’ve linked the quote to a client; however, you can modify the name as needed. 
  • Quote names are shown in the quote list and the Pipeline view, so it’s easier to tell them apart.
  • You can also look up quotes on your site by the quote name.
    
• Project – if you’d like to link the quote to an existing project, select the respective project from this dropdown field. You can leave this field empty if there’s no project yet and link the quote and project later.
  
• Currency – select the main currency for the quote.
  • The currency is automatically filled in based on your site’s default settings or the client profile, but you can modify the selection.
  • In some cases, you may select a different currency for outsourced costs.
• Status – select the quote's status.
  • The default quote status is Scoping, but you can always select any other status as needed.
• Price list – select the price list used in this quote.
  • The price list is automatically selected based on your site’s default settings or the client profile, but you can always select a different one.
  • While you can modify the price list selection on a quote at any point, we don’t recommend changing it once the project is in progress – it will impact all linked documents and revenue calculations.
• Pricing method – choose between role pricing and service pricing for your quote.
  • When using service prices, the unit price is determined by the product/service's default selling price.
  • When using role prices, the product/service unit price is determined by the role's selling price. Scoro will apply the role prices based on the selected price list. You can assign the role in the Cost and provider info column.
    
  • To set different role selling prices than those in the price list, click the Modify role prices button and adjust the prices accordingly. However, make sure to do this before adding services and roles to the quote, so those custom price(s) are used when you start adding services.
    
     If you modify role prices after you’ve added services to the quote:
    • The unit price on the quote line will not be updated retrospectively and will only affect the revenue calculation later on in the project.
    • In the matrix view, the Selling price (updated role price) and Price (original role price) won’t match, but you can’t modify the planned hours for the role to use the updated local role price.
      

3. Defining services, price, and scope

The middle part of the quote is where you add the quote line items and structure your quote using subheadings, organizing the line items under them as needed.

The quote line item area has two sections:

• The left side is the client-facing side that outlines services and holds price and scope-related information.
• The right side is meant for internal cost estimation and margin calculations. Your client will not see the cost, margin, and provider information on the quote, as these columns are intended solely for internal purposes to help you assess profitability and ensure the desired margins for each service.

Let’s look at the client-facing part first – how to add products and services to the price proposal.

3.1. Adding a product or service

There are three ways you can add your products and services (your deliverables) to your quote:

• If you’ve standardized your products and services (your deliverables) and added them to your product database, compiling the quote is easy because everything is partially automated. Simply select the suitable deliverable from the dropdown field. You can type in the field to quickly find the necessary product and select it.
  

• To quote a completely new service, simply type the service name manually. By default, Scoro will also add the new service to your database. If you want to fill out the whole product card for the new service, you can easily do it without leaving the quote view. Simply click on the [+] icon, select Add row, and fill in the product details.

  Note! Adding a new product or service when compiling a quote creates a new product in your database. Additionally, whenever someone renames a standard service, it gets added to your product database as another new service. To prevent this and keep your product database clean, we recommend unticking the Add new products/services on sales documents to the product database checkbox under Settings > Sales and finance > General.

  

• If you’re using product codes, you can simply type in the product code. Learn more about product codes.

3.2. How service or role prices are applied

Let’s walk through how the prices are applied to the products and deliverables you’ve added to your quote!

Service prices

If you’ve chosen service prices as your pricing method and you add a product from your database as a quote line item, Scoro will automatically apply the selling price you’ve set for this product/service in your product database. You can modify the preset price as needed. The quoted unit price will also be used for revenue tracking later when the project is in progress. 

Role prices

If you’ve chosen role prices as your pricing method and select a product or deliverable from the Product field, the unit price will initially remain 0. To populate the correct role-based selling price, you also need to assign a role or a specific doer.

For deliverables with a single provider, you can select the in-house or outsourced provider in the Cost and provider info section. 

• If you assign a Senior Designer as the preliminary service provider, Scoro will apply the selling price of a Senior Designer to that service.
• If you assign Peter Kane as the preliminary service provider and Peter Kane is a Senior Designer, Scoro will apply the selling price of a Senior Designer to that service.

Once you’ve added the providers for your products and deliverables, Scoro will then use this info to fill out the unit price accordingly based on the role’s selling price.

For deliverables with multiple roles or users, you can add the roles and users in the matrix view. Learn more about how the prices are applied for such deliverables in the next section.

Role prices will also be used for revenue tracking later in the project as it progresses.

4. Estimating the costs

Filling out the cost details with preliminary provider info will help you estimate the profit margin for each service.

4.1. On the quote line level

For deliverables linked to a single provider, cost estimation is done on the quote line item level under the Cost and provider info column, which allows you to predict your internal costs. Select whether the quoted service is an in-house or outsourced one. If you have previously set up labor costs for in-house resources or the buying price for outsourced resources, the estimate will be populated with respective data automatically.

If your site uses multiple currencies, you can select a different currency for the outsourced service or product costs than the currency used in the quote. For example, if you're an event organizer in the UK planning an event in Italy, you can set the venue rental cost in EUR on a quote issued in GBP.

To set a custom currency for the outsourced quote line item:

1. Click on the cost field.
2. Select the necessary currency from the dropdown field. The dropdown field includes currencies enabled on your site.
3. Enter the necessary cost value and hit the Enter key.

The currency is converted automatically, letting you easily assess the margins. Purchase orders and bills created directly from your quote will automatically use the currency of the actual cost incurred.

4.2. In the estimation matrix view

For deliverables linked to multiple roles or doers, the cost estimation is done in the quote estimation matrix. Click the Estimate in matrix view to open the matrix view. The deliverables are listed in rows and providers in columns.

To add a role or user to a deliverable, click the Assign a role or a user button and select the necessary role or user. You can add as many roles and specialists as needed.

To modify an already added role or user, click on it and select a different role or user.

Outsourced costs are also reflected in the matrix, but can only be managed at the quote line level.

To specify the quantity for each role or user, click in the corresponding grid cell and enter the necessary amount.

Pro tip! Hit the Tab button after you’ve entered the quantity for a provider to quickly navigate to the quantity field for the next provider.

At the quote line level, the Cost and provider info column for deliverables with multiple providers will show the number of linked providers, and you can hover to see the specific roles and users. The quantity, unit price, and providers for these deliverables can be modified only in view. 

5. Structuring your quote

Use subheadings to provide a nice structure for your quotes by:

• Grouping your quote lines - for example, if your project has several phases, subheadings can help highlight what you offer in each phase.
• Hiding certain details in your quote PDF - if your quote contains detailed service information that is more relevant for internal rather than external use, you can use subheadings to hide the quote line details from the PDF and show only the subheadings to your customer. Use the relevant checkboxes to control what's shown on the quote PDF:
  • Group prices – PDF displays the total price for all the services under this subheading
  • Hide prices on rows – PDF hides row prices and displays just the deliverable name and the total group price
  • Hide rows – PDF hides deliverable rows and shows only subheadings

To add a subheading, click the [+] icon on the left-hand side of a quote line to add a subheading above it. Alternatively, click the Add subheading button below all quote lines.

You can also easily reorder, duplicate, and delete your quote lines one by one or in groups by using the icons on the left side of the quote rows.

To reorder the quote lines, use the single or group drag-and-drop button on the left side of the line. When reordering a group, the related rows will collapse while dragging and will expand once released into the new place.

To duplicate the quote lines, click the [+] icon and select either Duplicate or Duplicate the whole subsection.

To delete quote lines, click the trash can icon. When deleting a subheading, you can choose to delete all related rows along with the subheading.

6. Applying discounts and tax rates

At the bottom part of the quote below the quote line items, you can apply a discount and tax rates as needed.

To apply a discount, just enter the discount percentage in the Discount field, or click on the percentage icon to open the discount calculator.

You can also apply different discounts and tax rates on a line level, i.e., for each deliverable. You can find the default tax rate settings under Settings > Sales and finance > Tax rates and activate line-based discounts under Settings > Sales and finance > Discounts.

Once you've filled out all the necessary data, save your quote. You'll be taken to the quote detailed view, where you can preview your new quote.

7. Requesting approval for a quote

If your site has an approval flow enabled for quotes and the total sum of your quote exceeds the threshold, you'll need to click the Request approval button to request approval from the designated approvers in your company. You cannot send the quote to the client before it's approved.

Learn more about approvals for quotes, invoices, and purchase orders.

8. Sending, modifying, and using the quote

Once the quote is approved or if approval isn't required, you can send the quote to your clients, share it via a link, create projects and tasks from the quote, and more.

Learn more about sending, modifying, and using quotes.

9. Advanced quote settings and options

We’ve walked through the basics of creating a quote in Scoro, but there are several other settings that you can use to fine-tune your quotes further.

• Linking deliverables to different projects
• Multiple product descriptions
• Merging service/product lines

Linking deliverables to different projects

If you’re working on several projects for one client and want to link each deliverable with a different project, use the Project on each line option. This will create a separate Project box for each service line. Note! The ‘Project on each line’ option is available only if you use service prices. It cannot be used with role prices.

Multiple product descriptions

If you wish to include more than one description for the deliverable, you can activate the setting Use secondary product/service description on lines under Settings > Sales and finance > General. For example, if you need one row to describe the product and the other one to describe the return policy.

Merging service/product lines

If you want to plan out your services more granularly on the quote for internal budgeting purposes, but merge them into a single service on the PDF you’ll send to your client, the simplest way is to add the deliverables and estimate their costs in the estimation matrix view.

Alternatively, if the quote matrix isn't enabled on your site, you can merge the product lines by creating a separate PDF template for this scenario.

For example, here we have a quote with the following deliverables:

• Design, where a Junior Designer will do work
• Design, where a Senior Designer will do the work
• Copywriting

To merge the design services into a single line on the PDF template:

1. Go to Settings > Site settings > PDF templates
2. Duplicate your current quote PDF template to create a new one and click Modify to edit it.
3. In the Price calculation table tab, scroll down to the Price calculation table settings. Use the option Grouped by products and tick the Summarize by groups box. This will group the identical services into a single row on your quote.

Here's how our quoted services look on the standard quote PDF template:

And here's how they look on the new PDF template we created, where both design quote line items and their quantity, price, and sum are combined into a single item: