Help Centre › Money

Quotes & estimates

Price up a procedure before it happens, send it to the owner, and turn the one they agree to straight into the consultation or admission, without typing the lines twice.

A quote prices work before it is done. You build the lines, the owner sees what it will cost, and the work starts once they agree. When they do, the consultation or admission is built from the quote, so what they agreed to and what you invoice are the same lines.

Building a quote, with the running total at the top.

Where	What it does
The quote screen	Pick the items, set a validity date, and price it up.
Give it to the client	Print it, or send a link they can open on their phone.
Their answer	They accept or decline online, or you record what they said.
Turn it into work	One button creates the consultation or admission, with every line on it.

Note

A quote charges nothing. It does not appear on the client's account, reserve stock or earn commission. The consultation or admission it becomes is charged when you finish it, as usual.

Switching quotes on#

Who can do this

Practice administrator.

Settings›Practice Settings›Features & Modules

Quotes are off until you turn them on. Switch on Quotes in the Optional Features card and save. The quote screens then appear for your staff. Quotes you send appear on the client's Estimates page in the client portal.

Build the quote#

Who can do this

Doctors, receptionists and groomers.

Client›a patient›Quotes›New quote

A quote is always for one patient. Open the client, press Quotes on the patient, then New quote.

Or start one from Quotes awaiting reply on the home screen: New quote there asks which patient and takes you straight to the new quote. That is the quicker route when you are already working through the list and the owner on the phone asks what something else would cost.

Every quote the practice is waiting on an answer for, longest wait first, with New quote for starting another.

The patient's own list shows every quote for them, newest first, with its number, its total and its status.

Every quote for one patient, with its number, total and status.

Note

Each quote has a number, like EST-1000251. It is printed on the quote, it is in the e-mail the client gets, and it is on the row in this list. So when somebody phones about the estimate they were sent, you can find it without opening each one. An estimate number always begins EST, which is how it is told apart from an invoice number.

Fill in What this quote is for. The owner sees this, so be specific: "Ovariohysterectomy, dog 15-25kg" rather than "Quote 3".
Add lines from the price picker. Protocols, materials, procedures and lab work all behave as they do on a consultation.
Check Valid until. A new quote is valid for 14 days; change the date, or clear it if the quote should not lapse.
Set an Allowance (%) if the cost could reasonably change; see below.
Press Save.

The total updates as you add lines. It is the figure on the printed quote and on the client's copy.

Tip

Adding several items from one group is two presses each. After you press Add to quote the picker stays on the list you were choosing from, with a line under it naming what went on and what the quote now comes to. So three medicines out of one group is pick, add, pick, add, pick, add: you do not walk back through the categories each time. If you found the item through the search box instead, you come back to your search with what you typed still in it.

Got a quantity wrong? Change it on the line. The Qty box in the lines table is editable: type the new number, or use the little up and down arrows in the box, and the line and the total both follow. There is no need to delete the line and pick the item out of the catalogue again. Lab work has no box, because a result belongs to one test, and a protocol is quoted as one package, so its quantity is fixed too. To take a line off entirely, use the bin beside it.

To change anything else on a line, press the pencil beside it. That opens the line in the same editor you used to add it, so you can change the price, put it on a different price group, set its tax class, or edit the instruction and the note the client reads. Press Save line and the quote total follows. It is the quick way to quote a negotiated price: a herd job priced per animal, say, where the quantity is right and the rate is not.

Note

A protocol has no pencil. It is quoted as one package with its parts billed through it, so its price is the package price set in the catalogue. To quote a protocol differently, take it off and add the parts you want individually.

Note

The picker shows your whole catalogue here. Everywhere else it offers only what that screen can charge: a consultation offers consultation items, a ward day offers hospital ones. A quote has not chosen yet, because the same quote can become a consultation or an admission. So it offers everything: the spay, the anaesthetic, the theatre fee, the nights in the ward, the groom on the way out and the anti-lick collar can all sit on one estimate.

Note

A protocol is quoted once. The quote shows the protocol charge, with the items it covers listed underneath as included, just as on a consultation.

If your practice charges more than one VAT rate, a line that carries none is marked Zero rated or Exempt under its name, and a line reading Of which zero rated appears above the total. The owner's copy in the client portal says the same; the printed estimate marks those lines ** and *** and prints the key under the table, exactly as an invoice does. Either way a farming client can see which part of the figure carries no tax, rather than wondering whether it was left off by mistake. See Zero-rated and exempt items.

Note

An estimate shows one total, not a VAT breakdown. It is not a tax invoice and nothing has been charged, so it gives the figure the client will pay, including tax, with the untaxed part named under it. The invoice that follows carries the full split.

Where you have set an item to print as something else, the estimate prints that name and the item's own name underneath it, the way an invoice does. A practice that bills several products as Medication would otherwise hand a client a quote with the same word on every line and no way to tell what is being quoted for.

The allowance, and why you might want one#

The Allowance (%) field prints the total as a range. Enter 15 and a R2,790.00 quote prints as “R2,790.00 – R3,208.50”, with a line saying you will phone before going past the top of the range.

Leave it blank for a single figure. Use an allowance where the cost could change once work starts: a dental where you cannot tell how many extractions are needed until the animal is under.

Tip

Keep the range realistic. Owners remember the lower number.

Give it to the client#

Press Print/Send when the quote is ready. The Send Quote screen offers:

Print: the quote as a PDF, to hand over the counter.
Email or Send text: to the address or number on the client's record.
Send on WhatsApp or Copy link: the owner opens the quote on their phone, with Yes, go ahead and No, not for now buttons underneath.
The client portal: registered clients see it under Estimates.

The Send Quote screen and the ways of sending the quote.

Once the quote has been sent by any of these, its status moves from Draft to Awaiting reply and it appears on the Quotes awaiting reply tile on the home screen. Opening the Send Quote screen without sending changes nothing.

You can still correct a sent quote until the client answers. After that it is locked; if the price has to change, make a new quote.

Note

Changing a sent quote puts it back to Draft, so send it again afterwards. If the client has already opened the link, that link is withdrawn (they see "This link is no longer available") and sending again gives them a new link with the new figure. Pressing Save without changing anything does neither.

Their answer#

What the owner sees on their phone: the estimate, then the two buttons.

The quote records how the answer arrived:

How they answered	What is recorded
Online, from the link	The name they typed, the date, and the address they answered from.
In the client portal	Their name from their account, and the date.
At the counter or on the phone	The name you type in, the date, and that a staff member recorded it.

To record an answer yourself, open the quote and use the What the client said panel. The name is filled in with the account holder (change it if somebody else agreed) then press Accept or Decline.

Note

The panel appears once the quote has been sent, on the quote and on the Send Quote screen. If the owner is at the desk, print or send the quote first.

A Declined quote is one the owner said no to; an Expired one passed its validity date without an answer.

Turn it into the work#

Who can do this

Doctors, receptionists and groomers, on an accepted quote.

Once a quote is accepted, two buttons appear: Start consultation and Admit to hospital. Either creates the record with every quoted line already on it.

Start consultation creates a consultation for the patient. Finish and charge it as usual.
Admit to hospital admits the patient and puts the quoted work on the first day of the stay.

Note

Nothing is charged until the consultation or admission is finished. A quote can be converted only once.

When your prices have moved since you quoted#

A quote prices each line for the client it is addressed to, so a quote to a farming client shows the zero-rated figures and the invoice that follows matches them.

While a quote is still valid, converting it charges the prices the owner accepted. If your price list has moved in the meantime, the quote keeps its own figures, so the invoice matches the document the owner agreed to.

Once the Valid until date has passed the quote has lapsed, and converting it prices the lines from today's price list instead. A quote with no Valid until date never lapses, so it is always honoured.

Either way, the quote screen lists the lines whose price has moved: what each was quoted at, what it costs today, and which of the two is being charged. The list stays on screen.

After converting: the lines whose price changed since the quote.

Where the quoted price is being charged there is nothing to do. The figures are there so you can see where a price has gone up underneath a quote you are honouring, and set a shorter validity next time. Where the quote had lapsed and the owner is expecting the old price, apply a discount on the consultation for the difference, or phone them before you finish the invoice. If nothing has changed, no list appears.