When we released Quotes in January, we let you know that we were going to continue to add to this feature. The initial release was the start of a journey, not the end.
Over the past few months we’ve continued to monitor your feedback in our Community and have added new features to Quotes in each release. With this week’s release, we’re pleased to give you Online Quotes.
Why Online Quotes?
We released Online Invoices back in 2012, knowing that this would make it easier for businesses to invoice their customers and improve their cashflow.
Last year, we reported that businesses using Online Invoices get paid faster than those that use traditional methods, such as invoices as PDF attachments. Our data indicated a significant improvement for those using Online Invoices. The time it took to get paid reduced from 43 days to 31.
With Online Quotes, you can now convert prospects into customers faster than ever before. This drives faster decision-making and, ultimately, reduces the time between quoting for a new piece of work and getting paid for it. To find out more, watch this video.
How does Online Quotes work?
Online Quotes builds on our core Quotes feature. You can now include a link when you send a quote to your contacts so they can access the quote online. Once online, your contacts can:
- Accept or Decline the Online Quote. The quote in Xero is automatically updated for you, eliminating double handling or rekeying. What’s more, it’s easy to convert accepted quotes into invoices from Xero, which keeps your business moving.
- Raise comments against the quote. Comments are updated to the quote in Xero, and the issuer gets an email alerting them to it. So now you can respond quickly to any comments that are raised.
Beyond this workflow, Online Quotes deliver a range of other benefits:
- Improved visibility. You can see when your contacts viewed their online quote. This helps you understand whether your contact has viewed a quote or not, so you can decide to follow up.
- Real-time updates. Online quotes are updated in real-time – if you update the quote in Xero, it automatically updates the online view for the contact. This ensures everyone is working off the same information, saving valuable time.
- Add files to the quote. You can add plans or diagrams to an Online Quote, bringing your quotes to life. You control which files are made available with the online quote by selecting the option to “include within quote” after you’ve added the file.
How do you start using Online Quotes?
Providing your contacts access to view their quote online is as simple as adding the link into the email you send from Xero. You can do this by adding the Online Quote Link placeholder to the email when you’re sending it. You can also update your quote email template to ensure all of your emails have this link included by default.
What’s next for Quotes?
The Quotes journey is set to continue. We’re working on a mobile-friendly view for Online Quotes, so they can easily be viewed from any mobile device. You’ll be able to do all the important things you can in the browser view, such as View, Accept, Decline, Comment and view attachments. But this will be done in a mobile friendly way so online quotes can be managed anywhere, at anytime, using any device.
And we’ll continue to monitor your feedback so we can build this into our plans. If you have ideas, please let us know through the community.
This is great – I liked the quotes you brought out but this lifts it to another level! I especially like the ability for the potential customer to accept, decline or comment which should keep the customer communication flowing. Great to see multiple releases today.
Totally agree with Mark, fantasic stuff! Love the online function right through the process.
Thanks @Mark & @Di, it’s great to hear you’re enjoying the entire quoting flow.
This is great, will make our lives so much easier!!
Would love to see the ability to generate quotes integrated into the iOS app so sales people can more easily generate quotes in the field.
This is fantastic, this will help to streamline the process and make it easier for potential customers to accept.
I need my customers to be able to accept the quote and actually pay at that point. I run my quotes like Proforma Invoices
Hey guys. If a Xero could take a look at https://community.xero.com/business/discussion/10539831#answer118478299
Thanks
Hi Nick, thanks for your comment – we will definitely take a look.
The Quotes feature is good, but the ‘accept’ button is useless, at least for us. I mean, if you tick to send a copy of the quote to yourself, you can click on the accept button yourself if you like.
There should be an option when you send a quote to either have an ‘accept’ button, or an ‘upload purchase order’ button. Then customer can upload the PO and you get notified and can review. You should be able to click a button to send an email acknowledging receipt of the PO and mark the quote as accepted. This would then all be fully legal and auditable.
At the very least you should have the option to not include an accept or decline button, since there are pointless, legally.
Hi Richard, thank you so much for your feedback on the ‘accept’ button. I have passed your thoughts on to my team for consideration. Happy holidays!