Why Quoting With Your ERP Is Costing You Business

You know the drill all too well. You receive an RFQ and your quoting process begins. You want to get the quote out fast because you know many buyers expect a 24-hour turnaround on quotes (a recent survey we conducted to 370 buyers shows that 68% of buyers expect a quote in less than 24 hours, this is up from 53% from 2019 ThomasNet surveys.) You need to ensure that, in your hurry, you don’t lose money on the quote. So you start the quoting process using the only tool you have – your ERP system.

You may not know this, but quoting within your ERP solution poses a real risk to your business. Why? It requires an immense effort to build a quote within an ERP system, so you’re spending time overengineering this quote, while the data shows you might only win 30% of these. This delay also means that other suppliers can submit quotes faster and are being awarded the job. And, many of you are probably going around your ERP solution and estimating manually, which again, takes too much time.

So what’s the problem? Using your ERP solution for quoting means you’re spending lots of time “setting up the job” for a quote you haven’t won. That’s a waste of time. ERP solutions require that you enter all the routing information with estimates for setup and cycle times. You’ll have to determine the bill of materials (BOM) to make that part, and then the price for that material quantity. If you don’t have current materials pricing, you’ll need to go to your materials providers and get a quote – that alone, can take days.

While you build and spec the job within your ERP solution, your customer may already have accepted a quote from your competitors. And suppose you are using a more manual process (pen and paper, excel spreadsheet, reliant on tribal knowledge) which often results in inconsistent and sometimes inaccurate quotes. In that case, you enter that “bad” data into your ERP solution.

So, what’s the answer? You don’t want to get rid of your ERP solution – you just want to quote smarter (and faster). What if you could build a quote without having to build out the entire job within the ERP? Get confidence in the prices you quote, and get quotes out within 24 hours.

Quoting through Paperless Parts gives you the ability to quote faster and win more jobs. Its geometric pricing engine and ability to analyze any CAD file (including PDFs – coming soon) will help your shop leverage the geometry of the part file to automate steps in the quoting process and more consistently price parts. For example, based on the size or complexity of the part you are quoting, Paperless Parts can automatically select the correct work centers and operations that make up your router steps. Your ERP system cannot do this, so it has to be done manually.

Using Paperless Part alleviates many of the clicks that it would typically take to send a quote through your traditional ERP system. The centralized quoting system helps your team prioritize quotes and track all of your quoting activity in customizable dashboards. We have integrations with materials providers to provide instant calculations of optimal material stock and pricing for each job. Every aspect of Paperless Parts was designed to help you meet your buyers’ expectations.

The best part? Paperless Parts integrates with your ERP solution. Eliminate double entry with a connected system. Once you complete your quote, and an order is placed, the information seamlessly flows to your ERP solution, so no data is lost from the front office to the shop floor.