Many businesses start with a quote in Excel. That makes sense: you know it, it costs nothing extra and you can use formulas. For a few quotes a month it works well. When does it start to chafe?
What works well in Excel
- You calculate with formulas: quantity times price, discount, VAT.
- You keep your own price list on a sheet.
- You can create a tidy layout and save a PDF.
Signs it is no longer enough
- You copy old quotes and forget to change something, such as a name or a price.
- Quote numbers get mixed up, because you track them by hand.
- Several people work in separate files. Nobody knows which version is right.
- You do not know what happened to a quote. Was it opened? Is there approval?
- After approval you retype everything for the invoice.
- You only work out the quote after the conversation, often in the evening.
What else you can do
You can use Excel more cleverly (tables, drop-down lists, a fixed template), but the core stays manual. A quote tool takes that work over: it remembers products, numbers, sends, lets customers sign and carries on to the invoice.
Combining both
You do not have to throw everything away. You can import your price list from Excel, and export quotes as Excel or CSV for your own reporting.
Dealnote imports your product list from Excel or CSV and offers a feed for Excel and Google Sheets. See how it works.