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Quote Filter Options

Good afternoon, 

 

I think I have mentioned this once to the support guys but wanted to through it out to the forum for additional feedback.  I have started using the quotes feature quite a bit more, and in additional to being able to import a quote, I really need the ability to have better filter options for quotes.   The three default, pending, accepted, and rejected aren't enough.  I would like to add one labeled "ready to be invoice" "invoiced," "dispatched" and possibly "Accepted - Put on Hold".  I am not always able to do billing the same week a project completes so some additional sorting fields would be helpful...

Matt

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  • Matt,

    I see what you are looking for, and I think you may have to adapt a bit to get ESC to work for you properly.

    Normal service flow would be Quote, Dispatch, (Inventory Tasks), Invoicing.  We have invoiced quotes directly in the past for over the counter parts only sales, but as you noted, there is no traceablity.  So we now make a dispatch for pretty much everything we do.  And the Dispatch List provides a lot of what you are looking for.

    I have our EDB broken out as follows:

    So I have a flow across the board that lets us track progress on a task/job/etc.  So, if a quote is approved, it is marked so and turned into a dispatch.  Generally the dispatch is set for Parts to be Ordered.  This tells the parts folks to pull or order the parts on the dispatch (which came from the quote).  When they have done all that, it gets moved to Parts on Order where it parks until all the parts aren staged and ready to go.  If everything is in shop stock this step is skipped.  Once everything is ready, the dispatch will be assigned to Unassigned, which lets Dispatch know that the dispatch is ready to be scheduled.  He'll either contact the customer and get it on the schedule, or, if the customer is not ready for some reason, it will go back into On Hold, or NSP Hold (National Service Provider)

    Currently, no one can delete dispatches except for me, so anything that needs to be deleted is moved to the Delete Bucket to remind me to kill it.  I generally do that daily.  Interestingly enough, no one actually wants the responsibility of being able to delete dispatches, or POs for that matter, so this makes everyone happier, and it's less accident prone.

    So, at a glance we can see what is active, what needs to be ordered, what's ready to schedule, etc.  We can also use the Dispatch list to print clearer lists for review.

    Although I don't show them on the EDB, the dispatch list will also give you a list of uninvoiced dispatches, which should be reviewed frequently to make sure that everything gets invoiced and nothing falls through the cracks.

    Hope this helps.

    Rick

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  • Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

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  • Hey Matt,

    I agree. Those 3 are not enough choices. We don't really have a need for the clerk field in what we do, so instead we use the "clerk" field to give more granular activity to each of the 3 status. I have added additional clerk items like, "1 - invoiced", "2 - dispatched" etc... so that while a quote is marked as accepted I know it is in the invoiced stage or the dispatched stage of Accepted due to the status of clerk. I also have a "completed" stage so that I can filter out any accepted estimate that is done. We have found this to be very useful, especially since I run my own reports on the backend that give me very robust output. 

    Again, this is just what we do so it might not fit your application but figured I would share. 

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  • Luke,

    Whatever works for you, but in a very real sense you are working against the software to do something that it probably already does for you.  A bit like using a hacksaw to cut wood.  It works, but it's not the most efficient way to do it.

    We all use ESC a bit differently, and I imagine the devs shake their heads at times.  But as I said, whatever works best for each of us.

     

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  • Agreed Rick, However, It appears that Matt needed something that the software does not provide. As I stated earlier, this is a work around that is very efficient for our company and the way we do business. So I guess we will let Matt decided if it can help him at all. 

    Thanks

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