38 comments
Hi Ashley. You are correct. We haven’t focussed yet on quotes as we have some great job costing partners and have so far concentrated on the hard core accounting features. We will add quote support in the future as we get through other things we have in the queue.
Rod
Chris Magnusson
Agree, would really like to see a proper quoting system within Xero.
Quoting would be a really useful feature, would make a the system more complete for freelancers as well.
Kim
Just want to add my 2 cents that Quoting would be a really useful feature.
Matt
Im looking to shift to xero, the only thing stopping me is the lack of a quoting system within zero.
Ben
Any updates on this..??
Frustrating that it seems that this is still lacking..
Really happy with Xero- changed my life (no really it did 
)
But.. I’m dying to see the quoting component come to fruition.
tim
So when are we going to get proper quotes? Need this if I’m going to change.
Dave
come on, this is almost perfect – just add quoting and you will have our business for life.
Kimberly
Agree with the above. A professional quoting system is all that is holding Xero back from a superior product!
Anton Gerner
I agree, Xero needs quoting!
Xero – WHEN ?
Hey guys – while quotes are something we want to do, our current priorities, over the next few months at least, are over-payments, prepayments, discounts, budgeting improvements… to name a few. The feedback we’ve had from our customers is that they want us to work on these things first.
So, unfortunately you’ll have to wait a bit longer – thanks for the feedback.
Mark
Completely LOVE Xero, but… How does one get to sending out an invoice without having first sent a quote? Am I the only one who has to bid jobs before I get them? It almost seems like Xero never should have launched without quoting. Now that you’re successful you guys seem too busy to go back and add it. Please do this soon!
@Mark – yes it’s great we’re so busy and so many people are using Xero, but we definitely want to get back to this as more and more people like you let us know this is an important part of how you run your business and use your accounting system. We’re juggling a lot of demands but know this needs to be revisited. So this video and accompanying help (http://help.xero.com/#Q_Quote) is your option right now, unless you go with one of our work flow partners. Thanks for letting us know what you need and your patience!
John
I’m with Mark on this one. I love this software and it’s made life so much easier. However we REALLY NEED a proper quoting system, this is the only thing letting it down….. and maybe a link with IRD so tax could be paid from here
Khalid
Hi,
Quoting and purchase order system and you a complete product!! How l
Looks like a great start, but most business need to quote and send estimates. I also will not be able to switch to this until we can actually create quotes.
Would be keen for a quotation feature in Xero, but would have to agree with xero that their current system niche market is in the invoicing and accounting so the priorities would logically lie there.
Would love to see a quoting system on here. I think it would be simply adding a duplicate under Accounts drop down called “Quotes” then uploading the templates under this and treating as an addition, there is already Invoices and Statements so surely we can squeeze quotes in. Would make it so so so much easier to operate a complete accounting system as there is currently no streamline cloud quoting software, we run our business on cloud and unless you want to pay top dollar there is just nothing available.
Maybe you should take a look at one of your competitors in the cloud to see how they do quoting – namely Saasu (and I mention this as I REALLY want to change to Xero, but the lack of a comprehensive quoting module is a deal-breaker for me!).
In Sassu, a quote is generated, and when accepted is changed to a sales order. Once the goods or services have been shipped/done, the sales order is changed to an invoice. I think the magic lies in the way you treat your invoices. You shouldn’t separate the quoting from the invoicing, but merely add quoting as an initial step.
Steve
Yep i agree, Quotes are a huge part of running a business and needs to be addressed asap. This would complete the great package. steve
Brendon
Hi Rod and Andrew,
Its been 1 year Rod, and 6 months Andrew. How can this still not be a priority? Every tradesperson needs to use this function. Are tradespeople not part of the XERO business strategy? The average business in NZ is a plumber.
I dont get this??? Very frustrating…nearly the best product!
Agree with Brendon. Its been over a year! I’m sick of having to do a draft invoice to do a quote.
Xero is a great piece of software. I would also like to vote for the Quoting module. Would be a massive improvement. I am currently using Billings (http://www.marketcircle.com/billings/) which is awesome, but really want to use Xero for Quoting & Invoicing… currently I don’t even use the invoice feature in Xero as Billings is so simple to use & keeps it all in the one place.
Brett
Just to support the already common theme here, I love Xero, but the lack of a quoting function held me back for a long time making the swap over to Xero. I now use Xero as my financial management package, and I really do love it, but the lack of a comprehensive quoting facility is a real ankle biter. Someone earlier mentioned the system generating a quote, followed by a purchase order and then the invoice, this would be fantastic…
David Keane
Quoting is really something that is needed – we don’t mind if its something that is integrated by a 3rd party – but having it is a key business tool – please keep up the good work
Mark Broadbent
Like others I would like to put forward my wish for a proper quoting system. As a freelancer I put out more quotes than invoices, being able to integrate and track these down the line are a must have feature for me and a struggle without.
Richard B
Agreed – we would definitely like to see the ability to easily create quotes. At the moment, we have to create these manually via Word / create PDF, which is far from ideal.
Tristan K
Another vote for quoting functionality. I had assumed this would be included and I’m quite surprised it is not. Seems like a basic function as a precursor to invoicing for many businesses.
Doug H
We are recommending clients to Xero, some objections to move to Xero is it’s lack of quoting ability. More work on this functionality would be worthwhile.
Brett
I’m sad to find this blog post. I was pretty much all set to sign up to Xero and went looking how to do a quote then turn it into an invoice (somthing I need to do for every job). I find this and see that the feature doesn’t really exist. Kind of saddens me to see that this has been in the radar since 2010 and nothing has been done about it. 
I use the method in the video to create quotes and it works in a fasion. One issue is the Paypal link to give the option to pay does not display on a draft invoice. Second the file created when you email is call INV-00XXX.pdf so you have to save it localy and rename the file to Quote- 00XXX.pdf which then means you can’t email directly from Xero. It workable and not too far off what we need but just need a bit more functionality. Please make this a priority to improve , it must be getting to the top of the pile now.
Rory Walters
Hi, I believe what everyone here would like to see including me is two things, 1 being Quoting, It would make this amazing program perfect and make 99% of your users lives a lot easier and help them with a smother running company including myself.
The 2nd one is the users would like to hear from Xero is a date as to which we will see this, an actual date not a its in the list to be done,
Thank you for your amazing system, cant wait for perfection
Rory
D Allen
After reading these posts I am really having a hard time with using this for my business. I would think at $30 a month you should get quotes. It will be hard on me to pay $20 from someone for else for quotes plus your $30 to get this done.
Dave
Adrienne
Come on Xero, you advising changing of the draft invoice to quote however it then prints with the payment advise portion on the bottom!! Can we not, whilst in settings and making our change also have the option to delete the payment advice? Xero please listen to your clients and make us all 100% happy!!!!!
Both Quotes and Purchase Orders are still on our list and I too would have loved to have been able to deliver both quicker. Doing all I can to push them up the busy queue.
@Adrienne, @Alex – worth noting that the video doesn’t show using the “show payment advice cut-away” option in invoice branding to suppress the payment advice section and DOCX themed documents that give you even more control over how quotes should be displayed.
One school of thought would see quoting as part of a sales process and sales process is handled by CRM, not accounting. If you don’t win the sale then why would you want to clutter an accounting database with non-accounts? I understand that tradtional desktop accounting products have estimate or quote forms but I don’t see that as useful except in possibly a sole trader situation where CRM isn’t seen as required.
A quoting process can be quite complex with large product lists, revision tracking, price refreshing, pricing rules and proposal creation etc. I can see that development of quoting for Xero could easily blow out if not careful, better to handle with a 3rd party software except in a most basic form in Xero to satisfy a sole trader situation.
@Graeme. Yes you could argue that – but we will still do quotes. Also expect that CRM packages can do even more sophisticated quote features.
Cheers
Rod
Hi, Are there plans to improve the quoting system?
It seems to be more of a hack than a feature!