Where Can I Find the Best Spreadsheet Template for Quoting CNC or Sheet Metal Parts?

A lot of people are searching, “Where can I find the best spreadsheet template for quoting CNC or sheet metal parts?” on Google.

The snarky simple answer: In some folder labeled “Excel quoting templates” on your shared drive that was created in 1995.

The more complete answer: You can’t. Or at the very least, you shouldn’t want to. Here’s why.

Many custom part manufacturers are still using Excel spreadsheets to quote everything from simple to highly complex CNC machined parts. The more tech savvy shops are using quoting modules from their ERP vendor. For the past 30 years, the best and brightest shops have been quoting using a combination of PDFs, TI-89 calculators, Excel spreadsheets, and quite often, a magnifying glass to ensure that no detail is missed.

We often ask shops, “If you had to rate your quoting process today on a scale of 1-10, where would you put it?” Needless to say, quoting with spreadsheets rarely garners anything above a 5. “It’s fine,” is about the most glowing review. Quoting from ERP systems fared only slightly better, averaging at about a 6.5.

 

When our team shows people a better way to do quoting, it’s always exciting to watch as faces change from skeptical to amazed as our team talks folks through the powerful yet intuitive experience of quoting using Paperless Parts.

Think of Paperless Parts like an “Excel Macro on steroids” meets “the best 3D part viewer” meets “that guy in your shop that’s been quoting for 30 years.”

Quoting with Spreadsheets: A Thing of the Past

The premise of Paperless Parts’ quoting platform is solution oriented: we work with you during onboarding to codify what your estimators are doing today, streamline the admin and data entry using powerful AI-powered workflows, and let the geometry of the part drive your costing inputs. Layer on the ability to customize based on a customer’s willingness to pay for expedites and make it stupid simple for the customer to place the order. Then, pass that information all along to your ERP so nobody is stuck doing data entry once the order is placed.

At the end of the day, using Paperless Parts allows customers to win more business and diversify their revenue base, streamline processes so that expensive and hard to find resources are utilized against more value added projects, and reduces the chances that data entry mishaps or less experienced estimators lead to costly mistakes.

 

So yes, there are certainly Excel templates for quoting out there. But when you’re quoting CNC machined parts, why take your chances? Why waste time that could be otherwise allocated to more strategic initiatives that make your business more competitive? Why continue pursuing and investing in a painful process? Too many job shops describe their quoting process as throwing a dart at a wall with a blindfold over their eyes.

It can’t hurt to explore the alternatives to Excel and ERP quoting. Or at least it can’t hurt as much as quoting with spreadsheets does.

—

This article was updated on December 9th, 2024.