Quoting & Estimating

Whether you are a distributor that provides quotes to different customers or a manufacturer that quotes every job on a case-by-case basis, Macola ES’s Quoting and Estimating (QE) package is right for you.

Important advantages of Quoting & Estimating are:

• Creates estimates for both inventory and non inventory items
• Interface allows fields to be turned on or off dynamically
• Quote any combination of material, labor, overhead and outside service costs
• Prepare quotes for both Production Order Processing and Shop Floor Control
• Use existing routings or create new operations to capture labor costs
• Use purchase and manufacturing history to develop realistic costing models
• Perform what-if analysis by adding unlimited number of quantity combinations
• Convert quotes into manufacturing and sales orders automatically

A very flexible interface provides you with all the information required in order to give your customer a very timely quote/estimate. Changes to your quotes can be tracked using revision numbers that can later be converted into sales and manufacturing orders. You decide what level of detail you want to provide on your estimate. All your reporting needs will be satisfied by the various integrated Crystal Reports that are provided with this package.

Integration
You can quote any combination of material, labor, overhead, outside and service costs to create a quote/estimate. It interfaces to Macola ES's Order Entry (O/E), Production Order Processing (POP) and Shop Floor Control (SFC) packages.

Material costs
Material costs can be calculated by copying an item's Bill of Material (BOM) or by adding other material to it. Another item’s BOM can also be copied as material to build your estimate. Both existing inventory items and non-inventory items can be used in the quoting process.

In addition to the cost of your item, you can also mark-up your material costs to compensate for shipping and other material handling charges. If Macola ES's price code tables are in use for the item being quoted, price breaks for various quantities are incorporated into the final quote/estimate.

Labor costs
Labor costs can be calculated by copying a sequence of operations from an existing routing or by adding your own. You can also copy the processing steps of a similar item in its entirety or use just certain operations in creating the new quote/estimate. If only POP is in use, labor costs are calculated by including the value added cost components assigned to labor. Similar to material costs, labor costs can also be marked up when and where appropriate.

Overhead or burden costs
Overhead costs are calculated based on either the work centers in SFC where work is performed or by using the value added costs assigned for overhead in POP for that item. Where work centers are used, overhead can be calculated using a number of calculations. These include overhead calculations using amount or percent of labor and machine hours.

Outside processing costs
As more and more services are being outsourced to gain manufacturing and cost efficiencies, these costs continue to be an important part of your quoting process. Macola ES’s QE package gives you the ability to incorporate vendor related service costs as a part of your estimate. Once again, these costs can be marked up from cost to account for shipping and handling charges by vendor.

Manufacturing and purchasing history
Both manufacturing and purchasing history is available to the estimator during the quoting process. If manufacturing history is required, the manufacturing cost break down in terms of material, labor, overhead, and outside costs are available along with unit manufacturing cost. If purchasing history is required, in addition to vendor contact and contract pricing information, purchase quantities with their unit costs are also available to the estimator to make an informed decision. What-if multi-quantity cost analysis

Macola ES's QE package allows you to perform what-if analysis by adding an unlimited number of other possible quantities to provide the customer with the best value. A spreadsheet interface dynamically calculates the unit cost for various what-if quantities defined, spreading the fixed costs across the quote quantities. This provides you with a powerful tool that will help earn your customer’s business while providing the estimator with the required visibility over costs to maintain the target level of profitability.

Integration to the sales and manufacturing process
Once an estimate has been accepted by the customer, the quote/estimate can be converted into both sales orders and manufacturing orders. Manufacturing orders can be created in either SFC or POP based on where you decide to manufacture the new item.

In addition to creating the relevant orders, QE optionally allows you to create new items and corresponding Bills of Material within the various Macola ES packages.