Why Using a Sales Quote Saves the Accounts Receivable Team Time When Using Microsoft Dynamics NAV

What’s the importance of using the Quote process in Microsoft Dynamics NAV? Implementing the quote to order process can create a clear audit trail for customer disputes, allow review for simple changes, and even provide a place to verify and guarantee that an order has been received.

When the request for another Customer Service Representative (CSR) comes through, management will sometimes ask the question, “What do they do all day?”. Between proving out the time your CSR team spends on the quoting and ordering process and validating the total quotes converted to orders, NAV has the information to help you answer those questions.

To get the most out of NAV, start with the Sales & Receivables Setup. Begin by checking the Archive Quotes and Orders box. This will allow you to review changes that have been made between versions of Quotes and Sales Orders.

Now it’s time to start quoting Customers. In the Sales Order Processor role center, Sales Quotes are in the Navigation Pane.

NAV will automatically create an archive when certain actions are done, such as posting a shipment (during the Order process). When selecting the Print action, the options box will allow you to archive the document at the same time. If you choose to Send by Email (which, honestly, why wouldn’t you in this increasingly paperless environment?), the system will automatically create an archived version.

There may be other times and reasons you want to archive, when the system will not automatically create an archived version. For instance, if additional notes provided in the lines are important to capture, a manual archive may be required. To preserve changes made to a quote when the NAV process will not be triggered, a manual archive can be made.

The number of archive versions is available on the General Tab. Click on it to see the details of the versions.

Once on the list of archive versions, highlight the version you’d like to view and click Card.

At some point, you may be required to revert to a previous version of a quote, which can be done very quickly. Once you’ve navigated to the version of quote you wish to revert to, click on Restore.

At the point the Purchase Order is received from the Customer, converting the quote into an order is simple as clicking a button.

While it may not show on the screen directly, the Sales Quote number is captured, creating a data point for later review into Customer quoting and order conversion behavior. (Note: A simple modification can be done to add this field to the page so it is visible.)

At this point in the process, the Sales Order can be updated and changed as necessary, and once again archived in the same manner as the quote, including restoring to a previous version. Sometimes those customers can be quite pesky in their constant changing of orders.

And now comes the time of reconciliation and reporting. Since NAV retains the Quote number all the way through the Posted Sales Invoice, you can create Key Performance Indicators on the quote to order process. How much time does your sales team end up spending on quoting that never turn in to orders? What percent of quotes are being converted and how can you increase that percentage?

Overall, the quote to order process is one meant to reduce the amount of effort your team spends working around the system, but also gives you the capability to provide meaningful information to management on where “all the time goes”.