Quoting an electrical job requires careful consideration of various factors, including the scope of work, labour costs, materials, and other overhead expenses. Kwota is the perfect tool to assist you with your quoting and aims to reduce the time to price a job, whilst maintaining accuracy, thus avoiding any costly mistakes. Read this guide on how to get the most out of Kwota.
Firstly you’ll need to sign up, to sign up is a free and simple process.
Set-Up
Click on the link found in your email to verify your email address. Once verified you can access your account and start personalising it.
First stop, add in your personal details such as company name, company address company number and VAT number. It’s important to enter this detail, as this is what will appear on your quotations to your clients. It’s also a good idea to add your company logo and choose the colour scheme to match your company image.
Next up, add your company’s terms and conditions in ‘my account’ and if you wish add some text that will appear on the footer of your quotation. This should be a generic statement that applies to all your quotations to your clients, as it will appear on the footer of every quote. So something gratified like, ‘thank you for giving us the opportunity to carry out your required work, and for accepting our quotation.
Then you have the opportunity to add some default text to your email content, this should read something like “ Please find your quotation attached, with regards to the request for works. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Kwota will automatically address the client by name in the email and will automatically add a subject, this will be taken from the name you will add at the point of quotation.
Create or add a pre-set pricelist
Once you have personalised your account, now you need to add or create your own trade pricelist. There are currently 5 different pre-set pricelists available from Kwota.
If you want to use the pre-set pricelist created by Kwota, then click on the price list tab and click on the ‘import public pricelist’, from here you can select the electrician pricelist to import. Once imported all prices and products will be available to use at the point of pricing.
If you already have a well-oiled pricing formula, then you can download the CSV file and import your own pricelist. You also have the option to add a new pricelist and manually add products and prices, this works if you have bespoke clients with special pricing, just be sure to name your pricelist with a name that links it to the customer type.
The pre-set pricelist for an electrician is a list of items with an associated cost. This cost is made up of the material cost, but also factors in the cost of labour to install. This means that you do not need to worry about adding additional labour charges, and it ensures that a reasonable labour charge is included, and avoids a miscalculation in the effort.
If you are using your own pricelist which doesn’t factor in labour, then be sure to add a labour effort item to your price list and add an hourly or daily rate, you will be able to increase the number of hours or days required at the point of quoting.
Create or edit your customer’s details
You’ve created or added your pricelist so now you need to add your customer details.
Select new customer and before entering their details, select the default pricelist that you want to be linked to this customer. This could be your default pre-set pricelist, or it could be a bespoke pricelist you have created for a particular customer group.
Then populate your customer details and hit save.
Quoting
You should now have everything in place to start creating your quote for your client. Click on the quotes tab and then click on the create quote button.
Then select the customer that you are quoting for.
Add a quote name, this needs to be something meaningful to both you and your client, this could be the customer’s address or the customer’s name.
Add a quote description, again this needs to be something meaningful to you and your client. For example, it could be ‘kitchen re-wire’
Then click save.
You will notice that your quote will automatically be assigned a quote reference number starting with KWT followed by a 6-digit number, followed by a version number. Example KWT-000011-1.
At this point, you need to ensure that you choose your quote type, and choose estimate or quote from the ‘quote type’ dropdown.
If available, get a copy of your electrical drawings and start by breaking your quote down into rooms. If it is a large job spanning various rooms, it’s much easier to manage the detail by breaking it down into separate rooms.
Adding items to your quote
Once your room(s) have been added, you can start adding the materials required, if you start typing the item you want to be added, a selection will appear for you to choose from. If at this point you realise that you need to add a bespoke item you have the option to add it to your pricelist, or you can just add it to this quote specifically.
You have the option to change the quantity or items added, increasing or decreasing using the arrows accordingly.
Adjusting the price
You also have the option to change the unit price, by entering a new value, or if you wish to increase the price for all items you can adjust the price at the top of the quote, by either entering a % markup or adjust using the arrows.
Once you have captured all the items required for your quote, hit the ‘save’ button.
Sending your quote to your client
Before sending out your quote/estimate, it’s always best to preview the quote to ensure the layout and customer details are correct, you do this by simply clicking on the preview quote button. This will open your previewed quote in a new tab.
You have a few options with regard to the layout of your quote, you have the option to show itemised pricing, a total price, or you can simply show a bill of materials with no prices associated.
You also have the option to add a summary of items at the bottom of your quote, this shows a list of all the items on your quote combined with quantities.
Have a play around with the options and find what layout suits your business needs best.
Once you are happy with your quote, click on the ‘email’ button. You have the option to add a personalised message to your client, or if you have added default text in your account you will see your text appear here. You also have the option to cc someone else on the email.
Click send email and your customer will receive their professional quotation/estimate in seconds.
If changes are required after the initial quotation you can edit the existing quotation and a version number will be applied. Your original quote will also be saved for future reference.
Kwota was founded and designed by an electrician, aiming to provide a toolset to help electricians provide accurate, well-designed quotations, whilst reducing the time spent on administration.
We hope you have found this post helpful, for any questions, please do reach out to support@kwota.co.uk and visit our website at www.kwota.co.uk
