Quotes (Formerly Estimates)

A quote is a proposal you send to customers that lists the items you plan to sell, their prices, and the terms of the sale. In Zoho Books, you can create quotes and send quotes to your customers. Once a customer accepts a quote, you can quickly convert it into a sales order or an invoice. You can also perform additional actions, such as creating a retainer invoice or a project from the quote.

How Quotes Work

Once you create a quote in Zoho Books, you can send it to your customer. If you’ve shared the quote through other means, you can manually mark it as sent. Once the customer accepts the quote, it is marked as accepted. If the customer accepts the quote through other means, you can manually mark it as accepted. After that, you can convert the accepted quote into a sales order or invoice when you’re ready to deliver the product or service to the customer.

Create a Quote

• Log in to your Zoho Books account.
• Go to Sales on the left sidebar, and select Quotes.
• Click + New in the top right corner.
• In the New Quote page, fill in the following fields:
  • Customer Name: Select the customer for whom you want to create the quote from the dropdown.
  • Quote#: The quote number will auto-populate, but you can click the Settings icon and choose the option to enter a custom quote number, if needed.
  • Reference#: Enter a reference number, if necessary.
  • Quote Date: By default, the current date is selected when you create the quote. You can modify the date while creating the quote.
  • Expiry Date: Select the date until which the quote is valid. The customer should accept or reject the quote on or before this date.
  • Salesperson: If you want a specific user from your organization to handle this sale to the customer, select the salesperson from the dropdown.
  • Project Name: If you’re creating this quote for an existing project, select the project from the dropdown. If you’d like to create a new project for the quote, click + Add New in the dropdown.
  • Select Price List: Choose a price list from the dropdown that you want to apply to this quote.
  • Item Table: Select and add the items and their quantities in the table. To apply price lists to individual items, select the price list from the Apply Price List dropdown under the Rate column in the table.

• Shipping Charges: Enter any applicable shipping charges.
• Adjustment: Enter the adjustment amount here. Use a negative sign (-) to decrease the transaction amount.
• Customer Notes: Add any necessary notes for the customer. If you’ve already added them in Quotes Preferences, they will appear here.
• Terms and Conditions: Add any terms and conditions for the customer. If you’ve already added them in Quotes Preferences, they will appear here.
• Create a retainer invoice for this quote automatically: Check this option to automatically generate a retainer invoice once the customer accepts the quote in the customer portal. Specify the percentage to collect as a retainer from the total amount and set up a payment gateway.
• Click Save as Draft to save the quote in the Draft status, or Save and Send to save and send it to the customer via email.

Now, once you’ve created the quote, you can send it to the customer or mark it as sent if you’ve already shared it through other means.

Send Quote to the Customer via Email

To send a draft quote to the customer via email:

• Go to Sales on the left sidebar, and select Quotes.
• Hover over and select the draft quote you want to send to your customer.
• In the Details page, click Send Quote.
• In the page that follows, review and update the email content as needed. To include a copy of the quote’s PDF, check Attach Quote PDF. If you’d like to add any other attachments, click Attachments and upload your file.
• Click Send.

Now, the quote will be sent to the customer’s email address, where they can view, accept, or decline it.

Mark a Quote as Sent

If you’ve already sent the quote to the customer via other means, you can mark the quote as sent. Here’s how:

• Go to Sales on the left sidebar, and select Quotes.
• Hover over and select the quote you want to mark as sent.
• In the Details page, click the More icon at the top, and select Mark as Sent from the dropdown.

Mark a Quote as Accepted

If you’ve sent the quote to a customer via other means, you will have to accept the quote manually. To manually mark a quote as accepted:

• Go to Sales on the left sidebar, and select Quotes.
• Hover over and select the quote you want to mark as accepted.
• In the Details page, click the More icon and select Mark as Accepted from the dropdown.

Mark a Quote as Declined

If your customer does not approve the quote and you’re certain no further changes are possible, you can mark the quote as declined. Here’s how:

• Go to Sales on the left sidebar, and select Quotes.
• Hover over any quote that has been approved by the customer.
• In the Details page, click the More icon and select Mark as Declined from the dropdown.

Now, the selected quote will be marked as declined.