On Wednesday I headed off to London for the Xero Evolve Roadshow. The event was put on by Xero to go through new updates with accountants and business advisors to make sure we are keeping pace with the constant evolution of Xero.
Did you know that last year there were 500 updates and so far this year we have seen 150 updates! No wonder why we need to go to an event to keep track of all the constant changes.
I thought I would cover one of the main updates that may have passed some people by – Quotes.
Quotes in Xero lets you prepare a quote for a potential customer and simply email it across to them.
So many businesses rely on quotes and most quotes are given either verbally, hand written on a tatty bit of paper or created using Word.
Xero quotes look much more professional and as the quotes as all held in one place this makes forecasting workload and planning staffing levels much easier.
The Quote Process
Quotes can be accessed and prepared from the sales dashboard and the quote screen looks familiar as it mirrors the sales invoice screen.
Once a quote has been drafted this can then be emailed to the customer. Within the email the customer can view the quote (which opens a new window) and from here they can accept it, decline it or add a comment.
When ever one of these changes is selected you receive an email notifying you of the changes.
In common with the sales invoice process you can also track whether the customer has received and viewed the quote.
Benefits Of Using Xero Quotes
• Quotes look professional and match the style and branding of your sales invoices
• Creating the sales invoice at the click of a button saves time
• Helps to monitor future work demand
• Provides an easy way for customers to accept or decline quotes rather than phoning you or sending an email
• Provides an easy way of keeping track of quotes you have issued and means you don’t have to draft a quote and then spend time entering it into spreadsheets.
Despite the benefits of quotes in Xero surprisingly many people don’t realise it exists. If you want to have a play with the functions and how it all works simply log into the demo company and have a go!