AWRA Help Center

Open Sales → Quotes. The row of links at the top of that screen also takes you to Sales orders, Price lists, Customer portal, Invoices and Recurring invoices. These are quotes you send to customers; quotes your suppliers send you live under Procurement and are covered in Vendor Quotations.

A line is priced and taxed once, when the quote is saved, and then copied forward. The order carries the quote's lines exactly, and every invoice carries the order's. If your price list changes after the customer said yes, their invoice still shows the price they accepted.

Writing A Quote

1. Click New quote, choose the customer, the quote date and, optionally, a valid until date.
2. Add lines. Pick an item and a quantity and leave the price blank: the customer's price list decides it (see Price Lists). Type a price and the line keeps what you typed.
3. For a service or a one-off charge, type a description and a price without choosing an item. It is taxed at your standard rate unless you tick it as tax-exempt.
4. Add a discount per line if needed. It is an amount off the whole line and cannot take the line below zero.
5. Add notes and terms, then save. The quote gets the next number in your quote sequence (QUO-…) and starts as a draft.

Each item carries its own tax treatment, a tax-exempt customer is quoted without tax, and tax-inclusive prices have their tax extracted so the net figure never carries it.

Approving A Quote

Quote approval is on by default. While it is on, a draft quote must be approved by someone with permission to approve quotes before it can be emailed, have an answer recorded against it, or be converted. Click Approve quote on the quote; the approver and the time are kept. An expired quote cannot be approved until you move its valid-until date.

An approval covers the figures that were approved. Edit an approved quote and it goes back to draft. With approval on, editing a sent quote also takes it back to draft and closes the customer's link until it is approved and sent again.

To switch approval off — for a team where the person writing a quote is trusted to send it — go to Settings → Sales & POS → Sales Defaults and clear Quotes must be approved before they are sent.

Sending A Quote

1. On the quote, open Send to the customer. The customer's email address is used unless you type another; add a message if you want one.
2. Click Send quote. The customer receives the quotation PDF and a link to view, accept or decline it online, with no account needed.
3. The quote moves to sent. You can send it again later from the same panel.

The link expires with the quote — at the end of its valid-until day, or 30 days after sending when the quote has no end date — so a forwarded email stops working when the offer does. An accepted, declined or converted quote can still be emailed again as a copy to view. An expired quote cannot be sent.

The Customer's Answer

An answer can arrive three ways:

• From the emailed link. The customer types their name and clicks Accept quote or Decline, with an optional reason for declining.
• From the customer portal, for customers you have invited. The answer is recorded under the portal user's name. See Customer Portal.
• Recorded by your staff after a phone call or a meeting: use Record the customer's answer on the quote, with who answered and, for a decline, the reason.

When a customer answers, the person who wrote the quote gets a notification with a link to it. The answer, the name given and any reason are kept on the quote and in the audit log. A quote can be answered once.

Every night, draft, approved and sent quotes past their valid-until date are marked expired. An expired quote cannot be answered, sent or converted — write a new quote for a new offer.

Converting A Quote

From the quote's Convert panel you have two roads. Either way the quote becomes converted and can only be converted once; a declined or expired quote cannot be converted.

• Create sales order — for goods that ship over time or may be short. Choose the warehouse (and optionally the shelf) to ship from and record the customer's PO or reference. The new order is a draft carrying the quote's lines.
• Invoice directly — for a job done in one go. The quote's lines become a draft invoice at the accepted prices, due in 14 days unless you set a due date. Stock is checked first: if anything is short at the chosen warehouse after other orders' reservations, the invoice is refused, item by item, with what was wanted and what is available. Use a sales order instead in that case.

Working A Sales Order

Open Sales → Quotes → Sales orders. You can create an order directly with New order, or convert one from a quote. An order carries the customer, an order date, an optional expected date, the warehouse and shelf to ship from, and the customer's reference.

1. Confirm the order when the customer commits. Only a draft order with at least one line can be confirmed, and only a draft can be edited.
2. Confirming reserves each stock line at the order's warehouse — as much as is free — and backorders the rest. Reserved stock cannot be taken by the till, another invoice, a stock transfer or a manual check-out. Backorders are filled oldest first as stock arrives.
3. If a line has lost its reservation (for example someone released it from the reservations screen), click Reserve stock on the order to hold it again; anything still short is backordered.
4. Raise invoices with Invoice this order: either Invoice all outstanding, or enter a quantity per line and click Invoice quantities entered. You can also set the invoice date and due date.

The order tracks what is left to invoice on each line. It moves to part invoiced, then invoiced when nothing remains. Asking for more than is left is refused with the quantity remaining. A line invoiced in part carries its discount in proportion to the quantity billed, so the invoices add up to the order. The customer's reference is printed on each invoice.

When an invoice raised from the order is checked out, that much of the order's reservation moves onto the checkout. Cancel order works on a draft or confirmed order and releases what it was holding. Once any part has been invoiced, cancel or credit the invoice instead.

Quotation, Order And Proforma PDFs

• Quotation — from a quote, with its valid-until date and, once sent, the customer's accept link.
• Order confirmation — from a sales order, with the expected date and the customer's reference.
• Proforma invoice — from a quote or an order, numbered from its source with a PF- prefix and headed as not a tax invoice. Use it when a customer needs to pay in advance or get internal approval.

A proforma never takes an invoice number and is never filed to eTIMS, because nothing has been supplied yet. The tax invoice is the one raised from the order or the quote, and it files at issue where eTIMS is switched on — see eTIMS & Tax.

What Reaches The Ledger

Quotes, orders and proformas post nothing. The ledger moves when the invoice they produce does: an invoice with stock lines books its revenue and cost of sales when its stock is checked out, and an invoice of service lines only books its revenue when it is approved. See Invoices.

Permissions

• Viewing, creating, editing, approving and deleting quotes are separate permissions. Sending a quote and recording the customer's answer need the edit permission.
• Viewing sales orders and managing them (create, edit, confirm, reserve, cancel, and converting a quote into an order) are separate.
• Invoicing an order, or invoicing a quote directly, needs the permission to create invoices.
• Turning quote approval on or off is done in Settings.

The same rules apply in the mobile app, where you can create, approve, send, record answers, convert, confirm, reserve, cancel and invoice, and open all three PDFs.

Common Mistakes

• Waiting for a customer who never got the quote. With approval on, a draft cannot be sent; check that it shows approved, then sent.
• Editing a sent quote and expecting the customer's link to update. With approval on, the edit returns it to draft and the link stops working until it is approved and sent again.
• Invoicing directly when stock is short. The refusal is deliberate: convert to a sales order so what is on the shelf is held and the rest is backordered.
• Trying to delete a sent quote. Only a draft can be deleted (it goes to the trash and can be restored). Let an unwanted sent quote expire, or record a decline.
• Sending a proforma as the tax invoice. The proforma is a request for payment, not the invoice of record.

Related

• Price Lists — how the price on each line is chosen.
• Invoices — approving, checking out and collecting what an order raises.
• Customer Portal — where invited customers answer quotes and pay.
• Recurring Invoices — for work billed on a schedule.
• Quotes, sales orders and proformas — the feature overview with a worked example.