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With a variety of quoting software packages found throughout the web, we
understand that it can be difficult to analyze the differences between
these quoting software packages in order to make the correct purchase
based on your needs. We have provided this list of tips to help you find
the right quoting software for you. This list of tips will give you a
good basis for comparison of quoting software solutions.
Table of Contents:
Look for a money-back guarantee offer (especially for network versions):
Make sure that the software has a money back guarantee, especially on
their multi-user network versions. A money-back guarantee is a software
manufacturer's way of saying that they stand behind their product and
are confident that you will be pleased with it. Believe it or not, but
some software manufacturers do not offer a money-back guarantee on their
multi-user network versions. QuoteWerks offers a
30-day money back guarantee on our single-user and multi-user software.
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Ask for a demo version of the software:
Make sure that you can obtain a demo version of the software so that you
can verify for yourself that the product functions as advertised before
you have to part with your money. This avoids the time consuming hassles
of obtaining, and then returning products, just to get a look at them.
Most people evaluate demo software when they can find some time in their
schedule to look at the software, so it is also important that the demo
version does not expire, or at least gives you a couple of weeks to
evaluate it before it expires. QuoteWerks offers a
completely functional, non-expiring demo version that only limits the
number of quotes and the size of the quotes that can be saved.
To download your demonstration version now, click here.
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Closely examine advertised features:
Features contained in software can be implemented in many different
ways. If you are looking at two different quoting software packages and
they both say that they have a XYZ feature, you should use their
respective demos to see exactly how those features will work. Although
the same feature is advertised in both software packages, the feature
may require additional steps to use, or may not work the way you assumed
it does in one or both of the packages. Sometimes the biggest difference
between software packages is not the advertised features, but the way in
which the advertised features actually work.
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Find out if the software requires other software to function:
Some quoting applications are written in Microsoft Access or Microsoft
Excel that require you have licensed copies of Microsoft Access or
Microsoft Excel installed before you can use the application. This can
significantly increase the cost of the software, and it increases the
amount of setup and maintenance time required. It is very rare for
commercial grade software to be written in Microsoft Access or Microsoft
Excel. QuoteWerks does not require any other
software to function.
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Not all companies and/or software is made equal:
Software has revolutionized the way we do business in the world today.
It has made it possible for business to become highly efficient. Part
of the success of the software industry is due to the fact that it does
not require a large overhead to write software and then sell it. In
fact, it is relatively easy to do. However, as it became easier to write
software, more less qualified software companies have appeared that
write lower quality software products. It does not cost much for a
one-person operation to write quoting software and then make it
available for sale on their website. On the surface, all software
products listed for sale on a website often appear to be equal.
When you look a little deeper, you will clearly see the differences. Is
the application stable and well written, or does it crash constantly?
The best way to find this out is to request a demo version of the
software. It is easy to write software, however it takes knowledge and
experience to write software that works well and that is stable.
Product technical support is also very important. Find out what type of
support (voice support, email support, newsgroup support) is included
and how much support (in terms of minutes, days, months, years) included
in the purchase of the software. If voice and email support is included,
how quickly will you receive a response. Don't assume anything here.
Often, it can be days before you receive a response. One way to gauge
the response time is to call or email with pre-sales technical questions
to see how responsive the company is. Rest assured that if the company
responds quickly to your requests before you have even purchased, you
will most likely continue to receive that level of support once you have
purchased. Is the support staff knowledgeable? Receiving a response
quickly is not very useful if it is not accurate or complete.
Does the company provide a retail box, printed manual and CD-ROM for the
software when you purchase the product? If not, the company is typically
trying to make more money on the sale at the price of providing you with
less, and often, you will be charged the same price as a competing
product that does actually include these items.
Does the company have a network of businesses that can help you install
the software and integrate it into your existing systems? More
established companies usually have a "Reseller channel" of local
companies that have experience with selling and installing the software.
What is the focus of the company? Is the development of their product
the primary revenue source of their business or is the software product
just something else they do on the side. If the software product that
you are purchasing from them is not the source of their primary revenue,
you can be sure that they will not be focusing all of their resources of
the product. Not focusing all of their resources on their software
product will by definition slow the development of new features and the
responsiveness to product improvement requests.
Companies have different update policies Some companies release updates
every couple of months, and some companies make no changes to their
software for two years at a time. If you purchase from a company that
releases updates every couple of months you will benefit from the new
features constantly instead of having to wait for years.
QuoteWerks is known to be very stable. Our
customers tell us that we are very responsive to pre-sales and
post-sales technical support inquires. We believe in providing our
prospects and customers with an exceptional level of service, and
therefore all of our knowledgeable staff can handle both sales and
technical support inquires so you do not get the run around. QuoteWerks
is shipped in retail boxes complete with a CD-ROM and printed user
manual. We have a network of QuoteWerks solution partners world wide to
assist customers with the installation and integration of QuoteWerks.
QuoteWerks is our flagship and only product so it receives our complete
attention to detail and commands all of our resources. We are very
proactive in releasing updates to our software. We release updates every
couple of months that contain many significant new features which are
usually found only in full version releases every two years by other
software manufacturers.
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Beware of exorbitantly priced software:
Beware of high priced software that costs significantly more than
competing software. It is logical to assume that the price of competing
software with comparable feature sets should be similar. Most commercial
desktop software retails for around $199 per license. If you find
desktop software for sale that costs much more like $400 or $800 per
license, it usually means that the company bases it's business practices
as more of a consulting company as opposed to a commercial software
company, and they want/need the higher price because they are not
selling as many units as a commercial software company is. Consulting
companies by definition usually bill out all their employees by the hour
(often $100 per hour or higher) and are used to charging high prices for
their skilled labor. That is a good arrangement for them, but not for
their software customers. Software that stores it's data in SQL server
databases will generally be priced higher than $199 per license because
the added complexity of SQL server costs the software manufacturer more
to educate their technical support staff, and maintain the integration.
QuoteWerks is cost effectively priced starting at
USD $199 for a single-user.
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Make sure that the contact management integration meets your
needs:
Closely examine the advertised contact management integration features
to make sure that they meet your needs. Just because different quoting
software packages all claim contact management integration with ACT!,
GoldMine, KnowTia, Maximizer, MS CRM, Outlook, salesforce.com,
SalesLogix, TeleMagic, etc. does not mean that all the quoting software
packages have the same level of integration with these contact managers.
For some quoting software packages, the extent of their integration may
only be to retrieve the contact name and address information from a
contact record in the contact management software. While other quoting
software will do more like writing back forecasted sales/sales
opportunities, schedule follow up calls, etc in your contact management
software. QuoteWerks offers extensive integration
with most of the leading contact management software packages.
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Make sure that the software supports the pricing method that
your company uses:
Make sure that the quoting software supports the method of pricing that
you use to price your products to your customers. Companies sell their
products based on many different pricing methods. Some companies
discount from list, others markup from cost, sell based on volume,
customer price levels, etc. QuoteWerks offers a
very complete and comprehensive range of pricing method support.
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Make sure that you can customize the printed output (your
quotes/orders):
Make sure that the quoting software allows you to customize the look and
feel of the printed quote. The presentation of your printed quote to
your customers represents your company so it is very important that it
looks professional, and includes exactly the information that you want
to include on it. Some quoting software has pre-defined quote templates
that you cannot customize at all. Others allow you the limited ability
to modify some of the aspects of the printed quote like changing your
company logo. Some quoting software charges extra for a module that lets
you customize the printed look of the quote. Some quoting software
requires external software in order to modify these quote templates.
Some quoting software allows you complete and comprehensive control over
the look of the printed quote including the ability to create formulas
that calculating things like monthly leasing figures, and more.
QuoteWerks has pre-defined layout templates and a
built-in visual layout designer (no extra charge) that allows you to
modify them extensively, and to create new layouts. The layout designer
supports the ability to create custom formulas.
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Make sure that you can create and customize sales and other
management reports:
Make sure that the quoting software allows you to run reports that show
you information like a list of all the outstanding quotes, or all the
outstanding quotes per sales rep, commission reports, etc. Since you
will be using the quoting software to store all your product
information, and all of your quoting and ordering information, you need
to be able to retrieve useful reports using all this information. Some
quoting software does not include any ability to create or run
management reports. Some quoting software has pre-defined quote
templates that you cannot customize at all. Others allow you the limited
ability to modify some of the aspects of the printed quote like changing
your company logo. Some quoting software charges extra for a reporting
module that lets you run these reports. Some quoting software allows
you complete and comprehensive control so that you can create reports to
filter on whatever information you would like, and you can also
customize the look of the report including the ability to create
formulas that calculating things like monthly leasing figures, and more.
QuoteWerks has pre-defined report templates and a
built-in visual layout designer (no extra charge) that allows you to
modify them extensively, and to create new reports. The QuoteWerks
report filter builder allows you to create reports that contain only the
data that you want in the report. The layout designer supports the
ability to create custom formulas.
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Find out how the software e-mails quotes:
Many quoting software packages advertise that they can email quotes,
however they all implement this feature in different ways. Some send the
quote in the body of the email as simple text so the formatting is not
preserved resulting in the information floating around instead of
aligning with columns, rows, etc all of which looks very unprofessional
and unimpressive when received by your customer. Some quoting software
e-mails quotes as a Rich Text Format (RTF) attachment. The RTF format
preserves all the formatting of the quote, and when received can be
viewed and printed by any word processor application. Some quoting
software e-mails quotes as an Adobe Acrobat PDF (PDF) attachment. The
PDF format preserves all the formatting of the quote, and when received
can be viewed and printed by the free Adobe Acrobat reader that can be
downloaded from Adobe's website ( www.adobe.com ). For the method of
sending the e-mail, some quoting software automates an external e-mail
system. The downside to this method is that if the e-mail software that
you currently use, cannot be automated, then you will not be able to use
the quoting software's e-mail feature. Also, generally speaking, it
takes around 30 seconds just to begin sending an email when automating
an external email system because you are in effect loading the external
e-mail software which takes time. The upside to this method is that the
e-mail will be sent using your existing email software, so there will
only be one software packages sending your e-mails instead of two
different software packages. Some quoting software has their own
built-in e-mail client. The downside to this method is that if you use
specialized e-mail software that does not support the SMTP mail protocol
(most mail systems support SMTP), then you cannot use the quoting
software's built-in e-mail client. The upside is that a built-in quoting
software e-mail client using the SMTP mail protocol is much faster and
more reliable than automating an external e-mail system.
QuoteWerks has a built-in e-mail client that uses
the SMTP mail protocol, and can also send e-mails using Microsoft
Outlook, and e-mails quotes as either an RTF or PDF formatted attachment.
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Find out if the quoting software integrates with any accounting
software:
Using the quoting/ordering software you will be creating orders that you
will eventually want to send over to your accounting software. Of
course, you can print out these orders, and then have the accounting
department re-type the orders into the accounting software, but if your
quoting/ordering software integrates with your accounting software, you
can eliminate this unnecessary re-typing of information into the
accounting software. Some quoting software does not offer any
accounting software integration, others offer integration with a variety
of accounting software packages. Also, some quoting software packages
offer a generic order export feature sometimes called an "Export SDK" or
"Open Export" that allows you to export orders in a generic delimited
text file format that some accounting software packages are capable of
importing. QuoteWerks offers optional links to
QuickBooks and Peachtree accounting software. It also offers an Open
Export module.
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Find out if the quoting software has security features:
If more than one person will be using the quoting software, you may want
some security features that limit what tasks certain users can perform.
You may also want to limit who can view, modify, or delete each users'
quotes. If security features are important to you, make sure to find
out if the quoting software has any security features, and find out
exactly how those security features work. Some quoting software packages
have no security features at all, some have limited security features,
and some have a comprehensive suite of security features.
QuoteWerks has a comprehensive suite of security
features allowing administrators to control which menu options are
available to each user, which users can view/modify/delete each users'
quotes, and a variety of misc. security rights.
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Find out if the quoting software can use external sources for
product data:
You will be using the quoting software to quote products and services.
While most quoting software packages will let you just enter
product/service information "on-the-fly" in the quote in addition to
selecting items from a product database, some quoting software packages
require that all products that you quote must be in a product database.
Most quoting software package require that you import your lists of
products and services into the quoting software's product database. That
is an acceptable requirement, but if you can find a quoting software
package that lets you like to an existing database source instead of
having to import it that can be useful. Some quoting software has
specific links to vendors product databases that the vendors publish to
the public. QuoteWerks can link to any ODBC
compliant data source for product information so you do not have to
import the product information into QuoteWerks if you already store it
somewhere else. QuoteWerks also has links to PC Industry Distributor
databases such as D&H, Ingram Micro, SYNNEX, and Tech Data. This link is
useful in that you do not have to import data that is already in their
databases, you can just use it.
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Find out if the quoting software can access real-time product
data:
Usually the products that you quote and then sell are purchased from
vendors or distributors. These vendors and distributors usually change
their pricing regularly. The quantities of the items that they have in
stock fluctuate daily. It is very important to have access to real-time
pricing and availability information so that you have all the tools you
need to get product to your customer fast and as low priced as
possible. Having access to real-time pricing gives you the ability to
deliver last minute price savings to your customer. Having access to
real-time availability gives you the company the ability to know if the
product will ship today, or if it will be backordered. Since a
backordered product cannot be shipped to a customer, knowing that a
product is backordered before placing an order will give you the tools
you need to make a good purchasing decision.
QuoteWerks has a Real-time Data Module that retrieves real-time pricing
& availability from PC Industry distributors D&H, Ingram Micro, SYNNEX,
and Tech Data.
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Find out if the quoting software can submit electronic orders:
The process of ordering products can become very tedious and time
consuming. Your quoting software order will already contain all the
product part numbers, quantities, pricing, and ship to location - yet
when placing an order you would need to call your sales rep and read
each part number, quantity, price, warehouse, and ship to location to
him/her during which errors can be introduced.
QuoteWerks has an Online Ordering Module that enables you to submit
electronic orders to Tech Data.
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Find out if the quoting software data can be synchronized:
If you have multiple office locations or if you or your sales staff or
co-workers have laptops and would like to create quotes on laptops while
out in the field, you will need a quoting software package that supports
the ability to synchronize or import/export these quotes. Some quoting
software packages have no ability to synchronize / import / export their
quotes. Some quoting software packages can synchronize quotes in either
an automated or manual process. QuoteWerks offers
several synchronization features that vary by QuoteWerks edition. Remote
users can export their quotes and e-mail them to the main office (using
the built-in e-mail features) where they can be imported. The remote can
also initiate the synchronization of all changed quotes when the remote
connects with the main office. Updated pricing and product information
can also be synchronized to the Remote.
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Find out if the quoting software supports international
currencies:
Many quoting software packages are written in the United States of
America. As such, they are not always designed with the international
community in mind. Some quoting software packages cannot be used in
countries where the decimal separator is a comma. Some quoting software
packages can automatically retrieve the currency and decimal separator
information from the Microsoft Windows regional control panel. Other
quoting software takes international support a step further by allowing
you to quote in your base currency and an alternate currency at the same
time. This is very useful for when you create sales quotes for customers
in other countries and you want to present the quote to the
international customer in their own currency. Canadians have different
sales tax requirements than Americans called GST and PST. Some quoting
software supports the Canadian sales tax requirements, and others do
not. QuoteWerks allows you to quote in both your
base currency and an alternate currency at the same time. Canadian sales
tax is supported.
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Find out if the quoting software has a Configurator:
A Configurator is software that assists you in the creation of a quote.
Once setup, it will guide the user through a step-by-step process of
selecting items to include on the quote. Based on the items selected,
the Configurator may then offer new choices based on the last choice
made. For example, if you select a 15" tire rim, the next step in the
Configurator would only show you 15" tires that would fit on the 15" rim
that you selected. Configurators are extremely useful for making sure
that all the correct items are included in a quote, and they make your
sales force highly efficient. Some quoting software packages contain
Configurators and some do not. QuoteWerks has a
built-in Configurator as described above.
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Find out how flexible the line items in the quote can be:
At a basic level, all quoting software packages will be able to add
product and service line items to the quote. The more comprehensive
quoting software packages will also support the ability to add subtotal,
running subtotal, % discount, % charge, and comment type of line items
to the quote. If you are used to using these types of line items in
your quoting, it will be difficult to do without them.
QuoteWerks has a comprehensive list of line item
types as described above.
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Find out what database format the quoting software stores it's
data in:
All quoting software will need to save it's quote and product
information into some sort of database. Some quoting software packages
store their data in industry standard database formats like Microsoft
Access, Dbase, FoxPro, etc. The advantage to storing data in industry
standard database formats is that it allows you to externally access the
data that is in these databases. This is useful for creating
applications that can enhance the quoting software's functionality by
reading and writing to the quoting software's database directly. This
is also useful if you need to create reports using external reporting
software like Seagate Software's Crystal Reports. Additionally, since
you can view and modify the data from external applications, it makes it
possible for you to export or extract your data in the event that you no
longer need the quoting software and want to get your data out, or maybe
you want to copy the data that is in the quoting software into some
other software package. Other quoting software store their data in
proprietary formats that no-one else can read or modify. You lose data
flexibility and data longevity when you select a product that stores
their data this way because your data is held hostage inside of their
proprietary format that you cannot get to or export when you no longer
need the quoting software. As a patch, some quoting software packages
that store their data in a proprietary format offer a utility that
collects all the information in this proprietary format and then saves
it to an industry standard database format that you can then view or
export. This is a less than perfect patch because it means that your
data in this database will never be real-time. You will always have to
run the utility to have it update the industry standard database with
the proprietary database information (your quotes).
QuoteWerks data is stored in industry standard
Microsoft Access 2002/2003 databases in the Standard and Professional
Editions or a Microsoft SQL 7 or 2000 databases in the Corporate Edition.
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If reviews have been done on the product, find out when the
reviews were published:
When a software company posts reviews of their product, check to see
when the review was published. Sometimes the review was published years
ago when competing software did not exist, and therefore the reviews can
be misleading. Sometimes the favorable review is so old that the
publication that published the review no longer exists.
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