Portfolio · Metal fabrication and field installation · ~25 trucks
A quote is typed once, and the ERP budget comes from it.
Estimators built quotes in scattered spreadsheets and macros, then typed each one again into the ERP. Every quote was entered twice, and the two copies drifted.
The work
What we built, and why
The problem
The company fabricates structural and miscellaneous metal and installs it in the field. Its estimators priced work in a collection of spreadsheets and macros that had grown over the years. Once a quote was accepted, someone typed it again into the ERP as the project budget.
Two copies of the same number drift. Rates changed in one workbook and not another. No one could say quickly how many quotes had been won this year, or which kind of work carried the best margin.
What we built
The applications assessment confirmed that the ERP should stay the system of record. The quoting console sits beside it and writes into it. Customers, contacts, inventory, and vendors are read from the ERP and cached, so the estimator picks from real records.
A quote is built from tasks, and each task is priced from rate books the office maintains. When the customer accepts, one button writes the quote into the ERP as the project budget. The customer receives a PDF on the company's letterhead.
The analytics tab reads back from the ERP. Leadership sees income against expense by project and customer, and the win rate for the year.
The screens
What the people using it see.
Drawn illustrations with sample figures. They show the layout and the measures, not the client's data.
The result
What changed
Estimators build a quote once and the project budget matches it exactly. The office sees which quotes won and which lost, and why margins moved, without opening a spreadsheet.
More work
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Client names and client data are withheld. Every screen on this page is an illustration drawn with sample figures, not a screenshot of a live system.
Your turn next
Start with a written assessment.
Each of these projects was scoped from an assessment of the systems the company already ran. The assessment is yours to keep either way.