How quotes work
A quote is a priced offer to one customer. You build it under Orders → Quotes, send it, and the customer accepts or declines it. When they accept, you create sales orders from it. The quote itself is never used up or turned into the order. It stays on file as the record of what you offered and what the customer agreed to.
A quote is its own record
Quotes live apart from sales orders. Nothing on a quote touches stock or your books until a sales order is made from it:
- Numbers. Each quote gets the next number in the series, such as Q-000123. Quote templates have a series of their own, such as QT-000004, so saving a template never uses up a customer-facing number. A number is never reused, even after its quote is deleted.
- Stock. A quote holds no stock unless you turn on its allocation. See Hold stock for a quote.
- Accounting. A quote never posts anything to your accounting system. Accounting starts with the sales orders and invoices you create from it.
- Orders. One quote can lead to several sales orders, for example when the customer orders half the lines now and the rest next month. The quote lists every order made from it, and each of those orders shows a From quote Q-… chip in its header that links back.
- Customers. When you merge two customers, the quotes of the customer you merge away move to the one you keep. See Merge duplicate customers.
The lifecycle
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | You're still building the quote. The customer can't see it yet. |
| Sent | The quote has gone to the customer, by email, by your storefront, or marked as sent after you delivered it another way. |
| Viewed | The customer has opened the quote page from the email or the quote in the customer portal. |
| Accepted | The customer said yes. Create a sales order from all or some of its lines. While only some lines are on orders, the quote also shows Partly ordered with a count of lines. |
| Ordered | Every line the customer accepted is on a sales order. |
| Declined | The customer said no. |
| Expired | The Valid Until date passed, or someone expired the quote by hand. |
| Revised | You reopened a sent, declined or expired quote to change it. Send it again to give the customer the new version. |
You can only change a quote's lines and details while it's Draft or Revised. To change a quote the customer already has, revise it. See Revise or extend a quote.
A request for quote from a buyer arrives as a Draft with the origin RFQ, ready for you to price and send. See Answer requests for quote.
Every status, the actions it allows and the messages you see when an action is refused are listed in Quote statuses and actions reference.
Every send keeps a version
Each time you send a quote, or mark it as sent, SKU.io keeps a copy of exactly what went out: its lines, prices, terms and totals. When the customer accepts, the acceptance is tied to the version they saw, and so is the sales order made from it. This is what lets you revise and resend a quote without losing the record of what the customer actually agreed to.
You can't browse past versions in the app. The quote page always shows the current one.
Three ways a customer accepts, and what each one does
How a quote is accepted decides whether a sales order appears on its own.
| Where the customer answers | What they do | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| The quote email | Click View & respond, then Accept & sign on the quote page. No account is needed. | The quote moves to Accepted. You then create the sales order from it. |
| The customer portal | Open the quote under Quotes and click Accept & e-sign, then Accept & create order. | The sales order is created straight away, and the quote moves to Ordered. |
| Your storefront | Answer the quote on your own online store. | When the store's order comes into SKU.io, the quote moves to Ordered. |
Portal buyers get the quote email as well. If a portal buyer accepts from the email link instead of the portal, the quote stops at Accepted and waits for you, the same as any other emailed quote.
When a quote has optional lines or pick-one choices, the customer's choices at acceptance decide which lines go onto the order. An accepted quote shows an Acceptance card with how it was accepted, who signed, when, and the optional lines the customer chose.
You can also record an acceptance yourself, for a customer who said yes by phone or email. See Accept or decline a quote for your customer.
Next steps
- Set quote defaults and expiry reminders: choose how long quotes stay valid and when customers are reminded.
- Create and send a quote: build your first quote.
- See how your customer answers a quote: walk through the page the quote email opens.
- Quotes in the customer portal: what portal buyers see and do with their quotes.
- Order all or part of an accepted quote: turn an accepted quote into sales orders.