Best Manufacturing Quoting Software
Buyer's Guide
Quality is essential to any manufacturing company, but that’s not the only “q” you’ll need to pay attention to. The other major “q” — quote management — can change the game. Specifically, manufacturing quoting software. After all, slow responses are a black hole for leads. The right quoting and RFP software wins you bids and helps streamline shop floor operations.
Selecting new software doesn’t have to send you to a bad place. In this article, we'll give you the breakdown of manufacturing quoting software, dig into how it can spiff up your plant and learn some pointers to keep in mind before you buy.
Executive Summary
- Quoting software isn’t just a key component for sales. The right solution can help your manufacturing company lower production costs, increase traceability and improve margins.
- Choosing the right manufacturing quoting solution with features pertinent to your industry, company size and specific needs is essential.
- Integration is another factor to keep in mind, as you’ll likely already have MES, ERP and CRM software.
What Is Manufacturing Quoting Software?
Manufacturing quoting software is an industry-specific CPQ solution that creates quotes using data from shop floor costs and past estimates. It helps generate bids efficiently while standardizing prices, making it easier to lower production costs and maintain margins.
Love doesn't cost a thing (although the Bennifer wedding did), but being unable to automate RFQs and proposals quickly sure will. A manufacturing quoting solution increases the accuracy and efficiency of your estimates by tapping into historical data. You can also view real-time inventory, pricing and labor costs and capacity.
Primary Benefits
Manufacturing is a complex and intricate task with an incredible amount of moving parts. Before adding another ingredient into the mix, it’s important to understand how manufacturing quoting software can benefit your company.
Faster Sales Cycles
Haste makes waste, but speed is good indeed regarding sales cycles. The quicker you know your costs and overheads, the faster you can get back to potential customers with accurate proposals and quotes. Minimize time spent manually pulling information from past jobs and use real-time information on costs, materials and capacity to automate quotes and estimates.
Lower Production Costs
Another benefit is lower production costs, thanks to tracking and comparing supplier quotes. Additionally, it will enable you to standardize prices, making it easier to adapt the product design process so you can save big bucks down the line.
Enhanced Traceability
In manufacturing, your future success can depend on how well you understand past data. Visibility into the supply chain enhances traceability to help pinpoint problem areas and exceptions. You can also review past estimates and quotes to see what deals closed and use that information for future clients. Alerts are another common feature, making it easy to track and follow up on estimates and quotes viewed by customers.
Better Margins
Easy access to production costs, standardized pricing and discounts will translate into better margins. Streamline the approval process with pre-defined pricing rules and alerts when upper management needs to approve a discount manually.
Increased Automation
Set up e-commerce with automatically updated products and price estimates online. Enable customers to create quotes while web shopping using real-time pricing with integrated quoting and estimates. Additionally, integration provides the opportunity to give customers a fully-itemized bill of materials (BOM).
Key Features & Functionality
| Quote Creation | Quit stressing over sourcing data to create quotes with inbuilt templates and types. Automatically implement data from work orders, costing and lead times to determine your sale price. Once approved, turn your quotes into sales orders. |
|---|---|
| Document Management | Browsing through files of paper copies is a time killer. Store files in the software so you can recall data for similar jobs, review job estimates and export files via Excel. |
| Cost Tracking | Staying on top of cost tracking is vital to beat the profit margin squeeze. Use defined material base rates and required quantities to calculate material costs. Include predictive costs of payments to subcontractors and equipment rented or purchased to complete the job. |
| Price Optimization | Define prices based on demand and inventory levels. Set up rules for standard pricing, promotions and discounts. |
| Reporting and Analysis | Use cost analysis to determine product cost and divide costs into materials, overhead and labor. Create reports for the cost of production and manufacturing, including salesperson commission rates. |
| CAD Viewer | Build models for production and sales with 2D or 3D CAD viewing. Look at files for similar jobs using geometric search to avoid time spent recreating duplicate quotes. |
| Integrations | Keeping with modern manufacturing means you probably already use multiple systems, like ERP, CRM, MES and CMMS. Enjoy a seamless transfer of information with native and third-party integrations. |
| Mobile App | View, edit and send quotes remotely using the mobile app. |
Software Comparison Strategy
What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander. It’s important to keep your company’s industry and needs front and center when choosing manufacturing quoting software.
For example, if you produce multiple products, consider each quote's number of line items and test that feature before implementation. Or, if you make discrete products with a high number of modifications, having a 2D or 3D CAD viewer would be essential to your operations.
We might sound like a broken record at this point, but integrations will make or break deployment. You want to be able to transfer and pull data from multiple systems without having to deal with double entry or, worse yet, a solution incompatible with your current processes.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
First and foremost, price depends on your business’ size. Many vendors offer a subscription-based per-user plan. However, that may be a pricier model if you have multiple facilities and sales staff. In that case, a one-time license fee may be a better option.
Additionally, you may need to splurge a bit on industry-specific needs, including certain integrations or features like backward production scheduling.
Most Popular Manufacturing Quoting Software
Choosing a new solution doesn’t have to be akin to looking for the Holy Grail. We’ve done some legwork to bring you popular manufacturing quoting software and kickstart your mission.
Note: These are the most popular CPQ solutions catering to manufacturing, not explicitly the most popular manufacturing quoting software overall.
FPX
FPX is a cloud-based CPQ solution designed to configure quotations for manufacturers. It uses guided self-service capabilities to streamline the selection process. Save past product selections, configurations and proposals in a centralized portal for easy access. Import relevant data to create quotations, branded cover letters and brochures.
FPX Product and Quote Management Portal.
Verenia
A native CPQ module of NetSuite, Verenia provides manufacturers with a flexible configurator and 3D CAD automation. Tap into the latest product information and use dynamic pricing to create quotes, custom proposals and orders. Streamlined quote approval and sales order processes help shorten sales cycles.
Verenia Quoting and Ordering Process.
Configure One
Configure One is a web-based quoting solution that covers everything from sales to the production process. It uses bill of material data and integration with CRM to populate quote data. Configuration rules and real-time 3D visualizations give customers an accurate production picture. View and edit BOM, manage customers and generate documents using the quoting interface.
Configure One Real-time Visualization.
Questions To Ask
Before researching software, you should clearly understand your requirements, the gaps you want to fill and your budget. Here are some questions you should ask yourself to understand your needs better.
- What are our business requirements?
- What’s our budget?
- What features are crucial and which can we skip?
- How will the software add value to our existing operations?
- Will this software meet our future manufacturing needs?
- Does this software integrate with our current ERP, MES and CRM systems?
- Are companies similar to our size incorporating manufacturing quoting software?
- Have our competitors implemented any quoting solutions? How has it helped them?
Peace of mind is vital when choosing a new solution. Inundating vendors with questions might seem tedious, but it’s worth it if you want to end up with the right features and price point.
- Do you offer migration or implementation support?
- What solutions integrate with the platform?
- What features do you include in the basic plan?
- Are there any hidden costs or add-ons?
- What kind of training and support do you offer?
- Are there industry-specific templates?
- How advanced are the BOM and cost estimating?
In Conclusion
Just like buying a new piece of equipment, it’s crucial to look at the big picture before you invest in manufacturing quoting software. The right solution will support your existing manufacturing systems and allow your sales and shop floor to harmonize.
For starters, we recommend defining your requirements. Our free requirements template makes it easy to pick and rank which features you need. From there, wading into the jungle of vendors is a whole lot less intimidating.
Narrow Down Your Solution Options Easily
closeApplying filters...
Search by what Product or Type or Software are you looking for