[intro]Before you begin this Guide, you should have customised your Invoices, set up your Delivery Methods and must know how to process Orders on your EKM online shop. When you have completed this Guide, you will be able to Quotes for your customers. [/intro]

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Providing customers with quotations is essential for some industries so with this in mind, you may find it useful to create Quotes on your EKM online shop which can then be emailed or posted out to your prospective customer. Should they wish to take advantage of the Quote, you would take payment from them and amend the Quote into a standard Order, before processing it as normal.

Creating a Quote

1. To begin, you need to click Orders on the left-hand menu:

2. Then click ‘Add Quote’ on the top right-hand corner of the page:

3. This will then display the empty Quote, ready for you to complete the required fields:

4. When you have completed the fields for the customer’s Billing and Delivery Details, you need to scroll down to add Products to the Quote by clicking the magnifying glass symbol:

5. This will reveal a window which allows you to select which Products from your EKM online shop you would like to add to the Quote. Use the scroll bar in the window to find the required Product and then click the Product to add it to the Quote:

6. In the field beneath the Product Name, you can add specific details related to that Product by simply typing them directly into the field, or leave it blank:

7. Otherwise, to add another Product to your Quote, click the green cross symbol to create another Product, before repeating the steps by clicking the magnifying glass symbol again:

8. If you want to remove a Product from the Quote, simply click the red symbol. When you have added all the products you’d like, you can then scroll further down the page to complete the Quote. The largest text box is used to convey a message - such as a unique discount code for example - to the customer you’re creating the Quote for. You can use the Order Notes to add notes which be visible on the Quote for both you and the customer, and Internal Notes for details which are only visible to you as the shop owner:

9. Finally, if you click the Delivery button, this will reveal a window where you can click the appropriate Delivery Method on your shop which you will be using should this customer accept the Quote, or add a custom version specific to this quotation:

10. When you have completed the Quote, scroll to the top of the page and click the Save button:

11. Now the Quote is complete, you can send it to the customer. You can do this by clicking the Print button in the top left-hand corner of the page:

12. Click the green Print button on the bottom right-hand side of the window:

13. This will cause the Quote to download to your computer as a PDF file, which can then be attached to an email or printed out and posted to your customer:

[tips] If the Quote reads ‘Your Company’ across the top and/or doesn’t have the correct address within the footer, it means you’ve not yet configured your settings for Invoices and Quotes. To do this, you’ll need this Guide. [/tips]

Processing the Quote as an Order

1. When a Quote has been created, it’ll be visible on the Orders page with its status set as ‘Pending’ (as we’re awaiting an answer from the customer as to whether they want to purchase the Products or not):

2. All going to plan, the customer wants to take advantage of the quotation and pay for the items; you will need to take payment from them before clicking the Quote to view the details. Click the Edit button to amend the traffic light, before clicking the ‘Order Type’ drop-down to change the status from ‘Quote’ to the payment Gateway that the customer has selected to use to pay for the Products:

3. You can now treat the Quote as a standard Order, amending the Order Status as the Order is processed and the Products are shipped out to the customer.

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account-specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in the EKM Community. [/contact]