I was recently an early beta tester for a new product by Coding Staff called Quote Roller. Quote Roller is an online proposal creation solution making it easy to create, track and send proposals. It is a very convenient solution for any service oriented business to mange their proposals.
Adding Company Details
Quote Roller is very easy to use. First you create your company profile which is included on all your proposals. You can set up catalogs of all your products, services and subscriptions. You can manage teams and add tax information. Once you set up your company details you can add client details. You can provide all of your client company details including contact lists and primary company contacts. Once you have a client entered into the system you can begin to create a proposal.
Creating a Proposal
Creating a proposal is a very convenient wizard like process. The first step is selecting a proposal template. If you are not happy with the provided template options, or it just simply doesn't meet your needs you are able to create your own template and save it in your template library. The template creation process is pretty straight forward. You can add various sections, price tables and content blocks. You can even include images and videos as part of the template. This is a great feature. For example, assuming we're talking about a Web Design template, you can include screenshots of web designs and videos of how a proposed software feature may work. There is also an option for the Quote Roller community to share templates. As the user base grows I'm sure there will be many different types of very creative templates available for all sorts of businesses.
Once the template is selected you simply walk through each of the steps providing the necessary information defined by the template. For example, using the default Web Design template you would enter a title, select the client and choose the appropriate company contact as the recipient. Then you would add products, services and subscription line items along with the cost of each. This is where the catalog feature mentioned above becomes very handy. You can just select the appropriate products, services and subscriptions from the catalog. Very convenient and a real time saver.
Proposal Status and Notifications
Once the proposal is submitted the real convenience becomes apparent. The client receives an email notification that your proposal has been submitted and awaiting their review. Once the client reviews the online proposal they can either reject or accept the proposal. You are notified via email when your proposal is accessed and reviewed by the client as well as their rejection or acceptance of it. If accepted the client can download a PDF version of the proposal, sign it and fax it back to you.
You can also add comments to the proposal enabling online collaboration. In addition there is a audit history available providing details of the proposal process. You are able to review dates and times of every step of the proposal from when it was created to when it was completed.
Proposal Availability
Another very important feature of Quote Roller that cannot be overlooked is the fact that all your proposals are conveniently archived. You are able to easily access any of your prior proposals and verify the author, creation date and the current status. This is a great feature that ensures you have a current archive of all your client proposals.
Learn More About Quote Roller
Quote Roller is a very good product and a real time saver for companies that have to routinely create client proposals and contracts. I'm sure as the product develops further there will be many more features added making it even more robust.
Keep in mind that this post is based on a beta version of Quote Roller. As a result the features and functionality that I've outlined in this post may not be present in the first public release of the product. In addition, there may be many more features that I haven't even discovered yet.
You can learn more about Quote Roller here.