From an enquiry to the shop floor, without retyping anything

1. 01

   Put your rates in once

   Material grades (202, 304, 316 and anything else you stock), material groups, and the items themselves — each with its gauge, its unit, its rate and the conversion factor that turns a size into a weight. Labour and services go in the same way, under short codes your formulas refer to. This is the master a rate change edits, once, for every quotation afterwards.

   A sheet is held as rupees per kilogram plus kilograms per square inch at that gauge, because that is how it is bought and how it is consumed. The formula multiplies an area by one and then the other, and the two halves never get confused.

2. 02

   Describe your catalogue

   A product type is the thing you sell — a work table, a sink unit, a wall hood. Its features are the parts that carry cost: the top, the undershelf, the frame, the splashback. A feature can have variants, like a plain top against a tray type top, and can be mandatory or optional.

   This is deliberately not a parts catalogue. You are describing the shape of the job, not listing every size you have ever made, because the sizes come from the quotation.

3. 03

   Write the formula for each feature

   A formula is an ordered set of steps. Step one works out the sheet weight from the dimensions; step two turns that into money at the grade rate; step three adds fabrication labour per square foot; step four adds consumables and returns the total. Test it in the editor with sample dimensions and read the trace before it goes anywhere near a customer.

   Formulas are set up with you during onboarding. This is the part that carries your trade knowledge, and it is worth getting right rather than fast.

4. 04

   Build the quotation

   Pick the client, pick the grade for the job, then add items: product, dimensions, options, quantity. The engine resolves which formula applies to each feature, finds the right material for the grade, and prices the line. Duplicate a line to make the next size. Add free-text lines for bought-in items and freight.

   Sections group a long quotation into areas of the job, and each line can carry your own key. Transport, installation and commissioning go on the quotation and fall inside the GST base rather than being added after it.

5. 05

   Send it

   A branded PDF on your letterhead with your terms, a spreadsheet export if the customer wants to work through the numbers, and a shareable link that opens the quotation in any browser with a to-scale 3D preview of the piece. The link is enabled per quotation and can be revoked.

   If your shop works with approvals, the quotation goes through submit, review and approve with remarks and a full status log first. If it does not, that workflow can be switched off.

6. 06

   Hand it to the shop

   The same priced quotation produces a bill of materials — what the job consumes, aggregated across every line — and a cutting list that nests the sheet pieces onto standard sheets and counts them. An approved quotation can be exported to Tally.

   Nothing is retyped between the customer’s number and the shop’s, which is the usual place for the two to quietly disagree.

What setting up actually involves

The honest answer, because it is the question that decides whether this is worth your time.

• Your rates — A spreadsheet of what you buy and what you pay for labour. This is the part you already have, and it goes in as it stands.
• Your products — The four or five things you actually sell most of, described as features. You do not need the whole catalogue on day one.
• Your formulas — The arithmetic currently living in a spreadsheet, in somebody’s head, or both. This is done with you, and it is where the time goes.
• Your branding and terms — Logo, stamp, signature, and the terms block you put at the bottom of every quotation today.

Bulk import covers the masters — vendors, grades, groups, material and service items, clients. Formulas and their mappings are not bulk-importable and are set up directly.