Quoting4Act Manual

This program has gone through a few iterations since it was originally developed. In 2019 it was rewritten to remove the requirement for custom tables to track the quote details, which simplified the requirements and reduced the cost for the users.

The important thing to understand from a user perspective is this is a quote renderer. It takes the products & services from an Opportunity and converts it into a Quote that we can make some adjustments to through the quoting console.

This is different from some popular quoting programs that a quote inside of its application and then creates the opportunity in Act!. This goes in the opposite direction, creating the quote from the Opportunity.

Setup Process

  1. Close Act!
  2. Download installed at http://www.act4work.com/files/Quoting4Act/
  3. Install software
  4. Launch Act! and register the software or the trial Once you're back into Act!, go into the Opportunity section and select the Detail View of any product to check that the Quoting4act label is there beside the layout selector.
    Quoting4Act

If so, click Quoting4act from the setup menu and it will prompt you to create seven fields:

  1. Quote Number
  2. Deposit Required
  3. Deposit Required Value
  4. Applicable taxes
  5. Quote Currency
  6. Shipping Cost
  7. Exchange Rate

The database will be locked and the fields created, and when completed you'll be returned to the previous view. Please note a few important details about this process:

  • These seven new fields are NOT added to the Opportunity layout, and in most cases they won't be needed. - If you try to launch the Quoting4act program before creating these fields, it will advise you that the fields don't exist and need to be created
  • As fields can only be created on a Master Database, this process cannot be completed on an RDB. In this case, the fields must be created on the master database, so install the add-on in trial mode on the server to create those fields there first. It can be uninstalled afterwards The next stage is to go to settings (top right corner of Quoting Console)
  • General Settings
  • Document Formatting
  • Tax Settings
  • Email Settings

General Settings

General Settings include the following:

  • Logo
  • Currencies (if applicable)
  • Sales tax number (if required)
  • Quote prefix (important when working on a subscriber copy of a database since Quoting4act cannot track quote numbers generated by others on their RDB’s)
  • Quote Number Suffix (if required)
  • Minimum Digits (includes number, and both prefix and suffix)
  • Last Quote used (tracked locally only)
  • Company Address (will appear in the quote header under logo)
  • Disclaimer, will appear at bottom of all quotes
  • Default Email body (this text will pre-populate any email client when a quote is generated and sent by Quoting3act

Document Formatting

These settings allow you to choose the fonts for the header, data, and company address. You can also format the colour of the Headers

Tax Settings

  • For those business that are required to charge sales taxes based on the region into which they’re selling, this feature gives the user a lot of flexibility about which sales tax will be displayed in a quotation
  • This section is also useful for adding FX (Foreign Exchange) where users are selling in their local country based on a foreign currency). For example, a Canadian vendor quoting another Canadian in CAD based on USD.

Email Settings

Quoting4act can send quotes without an email client provided it has the required sending information, which includes the following:

  • Display name (typically your first and last name)
  • Email Address
  • SMTP server
  • SMTP user name (typically your email address)
  • SMTP password
  • SMTP Port
  • Encryption (Off, SSL, or TLS)
Setup is complete.

If you have to repeat this setup & configuration process on multiple computers, you can complete the setup on the first computer and copy the configuration settings from the following folder into the same folder on the other machines:

  • Plugin settings are in the %appdata% folder
  • act4quoting folder: %appdata%\Act4Quote.Config (edited)

Creating a quote

Once the setup is complete, a quote can be created following these steps:

  1. Create an Opportunity adding your products and services.
  2. Drill into the detail view for the Opportunity.
  3. Click Quoting4act button by the menu selector.
  4. The Quoting console will display, showing all the products and services from the Opportunity, as well as the quantities, rates, extended values, disounts, etc.
  5. Click on the Taxes tab near the top (under the quote number) and check the sales taxes are selected appropriately. Make changes as required. These settings are made on a quote by quote basis. With that complete, go down to Quote information and update the following fields to reflect your quotes requirements
  • Shipping
  • Required Deposit
  • Deposit Date (when you would need the deposit by)
  1. Check Basic Setting will be for the following:
  • Contact (pulled from the contact linked to the Opportunity)
  • Currency (select appropriate currency of quote)
  • Valid to (this is the expiry date of the quote)
  1. Check Document Settings
  • Display quote after saving (not required with preview button now)
  • Display grid lines (user preference, but not appealing to most)
  • Send Email after saving (not required with “email quote” button)
  • Use Business Address as shipping address
Quoting4Act Document Settings

Bottom Command Buttons

  • Preview Quote in PDF
  • Email Quote (creates PDF and creates email with pre-populated text from settings. Can be edited on the fly as needed. Records email and document to Opportunity History when sending)
  • Save Quote to Documents (click on this button to save a PDF of this quote to the Documents Tab of the Opportunity
  • Save Quote (save quote and close console)Content

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