Call-off Quotes in Epicor Kinetic
How an enhancement to quote handling saved time and reduced errors for construction supply
Challenge
Epicor's quote system assumes a simple transfer to a single sales order, which doesn't suit large projects.
Outcome
With customised quote management, huge quotes can be reliably managed without workarounds and errors.
Our client manufactures building components for construction, with a lot of production being made to order to specified requirements.
The problem
The sales team spent a significant proportion of their time managing their quote backlog.
The core reason being that their customers often tendered for very large multi-stage projects, so each quote could be, say, 300 lines split into a dozen designated phases. Epicor's quote system is built around one quote becoming one sales order, so when a customer ordered a phase lot from a quote, that quote would be marked as "won" and closed.
To get around this, they would copy the quote to a new quote, removing the lines already ordered, and maintained a central spreadsheet with current values and a trail backwards over versions. This was fragile and time-consuming, and hard to report reliably on.
The approach
The quote module in Kinetic tends to be one that users experience friction with. This is not a deficiency in Epicor's implementation, but the result of the need for it to incorporate elements of almost everything the vast system can do, which makes it more complex than users appreciate. As with anything complex, a lot can be done to change it, but the technical implications need to be allowed for.
In this case, it was decided to change the built-in workings of the quotes as little as possible, and instead to add an enhancement on top, based on a custom tracking table that would replace and mirror the evolved functionality of the existing spreadsheet. Keeping it as a database table within the Kinetic system meant it could be more robust and reliable, and the error-prone user interactions replaced by automation.
BPMs triggered by normal quote methods kept this table updated with records of quoted items, together with phase and reference details. This meant that tracking the current state became easy as the data was automatic.
In addition, a custom quote-to-order process, making use of the built-in process but with alternative means of selecting items, based on phases and references as well as standard IDs and parts, was created. An important part of this was ensuring that the quote status (Won/Lost) was separated from open/closed status, with quotes remaining open if won until either all parts have been ordered or it was closed manually.
The outcome
The result is a clean and reliable workflow contained entirely within the Kinetic system.
Quotes can be raised normally, including the big multi-phase ones.
A dashboard of all open quotes is available directly from the quote entry screen, including partially-ordered ones, and new sales orders can be created directly from it by searching and filtering, particularly by the phase and reference data used by customers. These leave future phases open for selection when needed.
In the first six months the sales team estimated that at least a person-day per week was being directly saved on reduced admin. In addition, the problem of duplication of work due to mistaken records has been almost entirely eliminated. A useful side-effect is that the increased reliability of future committed work makes manufacturing planning easier, too, in addition to fulfilling the need to have a clearer sales pipeline.