Printing Proposals
Creation of a proposal is easily accomplished once the item information has been entered into the Project Specifications Window. Click on the word Project at the top of the Design Manager window and choose Proposals and Documents from the menu that drops down. Enter the code of the project requiring a proposal in the box next to the word "project". The name of the project and the name of the client will appear to the right of the project code. You will see in the grid below a list of all proposals that have been made for this project. If this is your first proposal for this project then the grid will be blank.
The Proposal and Documents Window also let you edit an existing proposal by using the Edit Button. The Delete button will delete the highlighted proposal and the Re-Print button will print the highlighted proposal. Entire proposals can be made inactive or marked completed by clicking on the check box in one of the columns next to the proposal in the grid. This will mark all of the items on the proposal either inactive or completed (See the previous section, under Specifying - More about the Specifications Window for more information).
To create a new Proposal, click the Add button in the lower left of this window and a new window titled New Proposal will appear…
The new window will show you all of the items that have been entered for this project. All un- proposed items will be shown in alphabetical order by with location code followed by items that already appear on a proposal. You will notice that the left most column is titled Tag. To place an item on a proposal, simply click on the box in the Tag column for that item. A checkmark will appear indicating that the computer intends to put this item on a proposal. Continue placing checkmarks in the Tag column until you have selected all of the items that are to be proposed at this time. During the tagging process you will see numbers appearing in boxes at the bottom of the tagging window. These numbers represent totals that will appear on the proposal itself. After all of the desired items have been tagged, click the OK button it in the lower right portion of this window. The computer will print the proposal.
After the proposal has been printed, a small window will appear asking whether you would like to accept or reject the proposal. If you choose accept, the computer will assume that the proposal printing was successful and that the proposal will be sent to the client. If you choose reject, the computer will assume that something went wrong with the printing and that this proposal is not usable.
Advanced Options – Proposal Tab
From the Company Advanced Options section click on the Proposal tab. This window holds settings that get passed to the project setup at the time a new project is entered. After the project has been entered, changing the setting in the company information will NOT change the settings in the project. The window appears on the next page:
Title is the name you want to call the document. Proposal seems to be the most common but we also frequently see "Estimate" and "Sales Order".
The 11 check boxes are used to determine which things get shown on the proposal. With the exceptions noted below, most are self-evident. None of these settings effect calculations. They are all used to format the appearance of the proposal.
The Unit to 3 Dec. Places can be checked if you want the unit price to show 3 decimal places for cents. Using 3 decimal places eliminates problems with rounding. If the quantity is 3 and the sell price for the 3 items is $100.00 then the unit price is thirty three dollars, thirty three and a third cents. With 2 decimal places the unit price would show $33.33 which, when multiplied by the quantity of 3 gives an extended price of $99.99 however the proposal would have $100.00 for the extended price. With 3 decimal places the unit price would be $33.333 and when that is
multiplied by the quantity you will correctly get $100.00.
The Title fields are used to change the title of each type of component as it appears on the proposal. The style field is used to specify how the different component types are to be treated and displayed on the proposal. The selections are Combine, List, Total and Ignore. Any component types set to Combine will have its sell price added into the merchandise sell price. List will cause the component type to be listed under the merchandise with a total shown for each type. If Total is selected, the total for that type will be printed in the total or bottom area of the proposal. Ignore means the component type will be ignored on the proposal.
The remarks box is used to include notes to the client. They will print at the end of the proposal and may be edited on each proposal that is produced. This is a standard description box and you may use all of the text formatting buttons.
Proposal Editing and Reprinting
If you lose your copy of the proposal you can create a replacement copy for yourself at any time. Simply click on the word Project at the top of the Design Manager window and select Proposals and Documents from the menu that drops down. Enter the project code of the project for which the proposal is needed. A list of all proposals that have been printed for this project will appear. To obtain a paper copy simply highlight the proposal you need and click the Reprint button at the bottom of the window. The duplicate copy of the proposal will be printed.
Editing or correcting a proposal that has been sent to the client is also quite easy. Once again you will click on the word Project at the top of the Design Manager window and select Proposals and Documents from the menu that drops down. Enter the code of the project whose proposal
requires editing. A list of all proposals that have been printed for the project will appear. To change a proposal simply highlight the proposal and click the Edit button at the bottom of the window. The proposal tagging window will appear with check marks in the tag boxes of those items that are on this proposal. To add or remove items from the proposal simply place check marks in or remove check marks from the tag box. You can also correct descriptions, pricing, and other information about the item by double clicking the item itself. The computer will take you directly to the item window where these changes can be made. After making the changes simply click the OK button at the bottom of the item window and the computer will automatically return you to the tagging window for the proposal. Click the OK button at the bottom of the window when all of your edits have been completed. The computer will print a revised version of the proposal. After this revised version is printed, the computer will ask whether to accept or reject this version of the proposal. If the printing was successful then click accept, otherwise click the reject button.