Quoting Software: QuoteWerks and Quosal – Oh My
I concede: MSPmentor spends plenty of time covering the RMM (remote monitoring and management) and PSA (professional services automation) software landscapes. The reason: RMM and PSA seem to be required tools of the managed services trade. But perhaps it’s time to put the spotlight on an additional MSP software market segment: Quoting software like QuoteWerks and Quosal. Here’s why.
Each time I hit the road, I run into VARs and MSPs that leverage either QuoteWerks or Quosal for sales quotes and business proposals. I concede: I didn’t call QuoteWeks or Quosal for this blog entry because I wanted to fly a bit blind today and throw some questions around to MSPmentor’s readership. I wonder:
- How many VARs and MSPs leverage quoting software like QuoteWerks, Quosal and BidMagic? Are there other options?
- Will the lines blur between QuoteWerks, Quosal and Autotask’s VARStreet platform?
- Can you run an IT services business without those types of quoting tools?
- What other types of specialized software are central to running an MSP business practice? Are there software market segments that MSPmentor has overlooked? Example: Are MSPs adopting tools like Autotask TaskFire and ConnectWise StreamlineIT to knock down the wall between service providers and corporate IT departments?
- Am I suffering from attention deficit disorder with this blog post and hopping around to too many topics?
Kidding aside, I’m intrigued to learn more about quoting software market in particular. Seems like the most effective MSPs have adopted that type of software… or am I wrong? (We’ll be checking in with QuoteWerks, Quosal and BidMagic in the days ahead…)
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Joe,
After 30 days of looking beneath the covers of VARStreet, I am very impressed with the technology and excited about where it is headed. Quoting is a core part of the MSP and Solution Provider business, but one that is more complex and takes longer than it should (costing time and money in the process).
With dozens of key vendors (quickly expanding into hundreds), using proprietary configurators or websites is becoming a larger headache. Simplifying thousands of product categories into a good/better/best scenario with up to the minute pricing, promotion and stocking information is the holy grail many SP’s are looking for.
Multiply that by device specific access by smartphone, slate, PC, and soon to be other categories, the future of quoting is a very relevant conversation to be having.
Jay McBain
Autotask Corporation
Joe,
That software is key if you want to work efficiently. I suppose there are plenty of small MSP’s out there who dont care whether it takes them 15 minutes or 45 minutes to do a quote. But if you want the 15 and want to be accurate, these tools are great.
Now, tighter integration of these apps with the PSA would be stellar.
nb
Jay: Busy quoting ThinkPad purchases, are you? Thanks for the insights and keep us posted on your Autotask efforts.
Nick: Funny you should mention PSA integration. Pretty clear to me some efforts in those areas are set to accelerate… …
-jp
Good question
We were using our accounting software to do quotes and were actually quite happy with the time it was taking and the output but, one major flaw was then keeping track of open quotes and predicting our sales funnel.
We made the switch to Quosal for it’s Connectwise integration and whilst Quosal has come with it’s own set of headaches (frustrations with importing pricing in our market -Australia and a bit of an over-engineered interface) it has delivered that real time sales planning for us and added a whole bunch of features we wouldn’t previously have thought of (bundling, quoting managed services and other recurring products directly from our quoting tool).
My only observation to share with those thinking about Quosal – and I can’t vouch for Quotewerks – is that it seems to require a lot more setup time than one might expect from a simple quoting tool. Embarrassing as it is to mention, it took us a good 12 months to really get it going and looking the way we wanted it to. I don’t think we’re alone on this either – speaking with other partners they seem to sit on it for several months before going live either because of pricing integration problems or just the aesthetics, particularly if they’re already comfortable with their past quoting habits.
In the end it was a good move for us and I think most MSPs would benefit.
If you do not have a Quoting system I don’t think you’ll regret going with either. We personally did Quosal and I love it. We were able to get fully functional within about a month in terms of doing regular quotes. This took multi-hour long quotes and reduced them to minutes. No more double entry or even having to enter items at all with Etilize add-on.
I can see what James said though as we are not even doing the really slick advanced things it can do yet. I hope to be taking advantage of all the new features by this summer.
Overall, if you don’t have a quoting system… Get One! Look at Quosal and QwoteWerks and decide which one is better for your business model.
John Albee
On another note is that we get complements and sometimes a bit of envy from our clients when they get the quotes and do the e-sign. I think it’s good for us to be on the leading edge when it comes to client facing items.
John Albee
We implemented QuoteWerks over 3 years ago, around the same time we started using ConnectWise, and we have never looked back. It became quite clear as we grew our client base that quoting was becoming an integral part of our day to day, that we had to take it more seriously.
Previously, we were using a simple form in Word/Outlook, which looked sad and unprofessional. QuoteWerks has taken us to the next level. We are now able to pull pricing from various distributors automatically, where before it was a manual process of checking each website or calling our sales rep–huge waste of time! In addition, we can create opportunities in ConnectWise directly from QuoteWerks that will create follow up activities for us. The integration is fantastic!
Recently, we implemented Etilize in our quotes, which has given us the ability to not just quote, but to “wow” our clients by providing detailed descriptions and pictures of what we are quoting. This has made a huge difference.
The next step will be to implement QuoteValet, but we will probably integrate this a little slower as we are still working on updating our main website.
Much ado about not a lot in my opinion. Ten
Sorry for the fat finger. Much ado about not a lot in my opinion. We use the quoting built in to Autotask and it works fine. Confirms my overall opinion that too many MSPs spend too much time thinking tools will fix their business. Just how many quotes are you really doing in a month? Convince the client what your value add is and they won’t care what the quote looks like.
Good luck to all.
Before commenting, honesty demands that I declare my interest. I part-own and direct the Company which has, for the last four years, been the World Number One QuoteWerks Solutions Partner. We work with QuoteWerks and QuoteWerks only; we are not resellers of any other software suite. That means I am obviously biased, and it also means that I operate a business which is in many ways similar to an MSP ā we would be technically described as a Value Added Reseller. So we sell and implement Quotation Management systems, and we run our own business using QuoteWerks, Connectwise and Sage.
Iām not going to get drawn in to a click-for-click functionality comparison between QuoteWerks, Quosal and any other software suite. Firstly because only know QuoteWerks thoroughly, although I have some experience with the demonstration version of Quosal. Secondly because experience has taught me that so long as software is reliable and the team behind it is stable and, above all, responsive, that is not the key issue, as you will see in the latter part of this post. I will, however, state the simple truth that in five years of dealing day-to-day with the publishers of QuoteWerks, I have never, not on one single occasion, had cause for complaint about availability nor āattitudeā.
First of all l will answer the questions in order.
ā¢ We use QuoteWerks.
ā¢ Iām not entirely sure what is meant by āwill the lines blur….ā so Iāll leave that one if I may.
ā¢ You can certainly run an IT business without a quoting tool, you can do it all with pen and paper if you wish, but it will take you so much longer to get your work done. If you decide to walk to a destination 50 miles away, there is no doubt that you will get there ā in two daysā time. If you drive or take the train it will take two hours. The comparison is a good one.
ā¢ We find ConnectWise, QuoteWerks and Sage to be sufficient.
ā¢ I donāt think you are by any means hopping around too many topics, but you may perhaps be leaving out the most important topic of all ā where is the true economic value-add to be found with the implementation of a Quotation Management System ā and it is here I would like to dwell if I may.
Consider for a moment the implementation of an hardware infrastructure ā a process with which most readers of this blog will be very familiar. Itās not simply a case of choosing computers and peripherals and putting them in and making them work. Sure, the kit has to do the job it is intended to do, but the true value-add is in the PLANNING of a major implementation, with associated business process analysis and optimisation of business processes.
With QuoteWerks (and I am sure the same would be true of any competing suite of software) the real, deep value-add to the business lies in the refinement of processes and optimisation of procedures which are essential to anything more than a superficial āimplementationā. The investment, likewise, is heavily weighted towards that aspect. Buying software licences for QuoteWerks or a competing product is the very least aspect of the expense. In terms of the cheque written out to the Solutions Partner, by far the highest proportion (if the job is to be done anything like properly) will relate to business analysis consultancy, and deep-level configuration coupled to training and support. My Company routinely writes proposals ā in English money ā for QuoteWerks implementations of around ten concurrent licences with a project outturn of GBP10, 000 to GBP20, 000, and we carry through three or four such implementations per month. But it doesnāt stop there. By far the greatest investment is that of senior management time as the user company works together with the implementation team to make a reality of the project. That investment does not appear on a cheque, but it is just as real.
If the paragraph above has put everyone off from even considering the implementation of a Quotation Management System, the good news is that the return on investment is extremely short-term. 100% ROI is usually achieved in less than six months, always in less than a year.
[email protected]
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[email protected]
Our company, Infinity Network Solutions, went with Quosal a little over a year ago after several years of trying to get our sales department to embrace something other than their home grown spreadsheets and scratch pads. More than anything I think the timing of Quosal reaching out to us and the sales team finally getting tired of making mistakes that won out, but in the end we were very happy with how Ken and the gang at Quosal helped us rethink our quoting and proposal processes. We have fully embraced that everything sold must be quoted in Quosal and transferred to ConnectWise. It is the way that both products work together that ensure we really know what is going on with each deal. Our clients love the online approval and so do we since we get approvals faster now. My purchasing staff loves the fact that sales knows when they pick a product to quote whether it is available or not and they can communicate that to the client before the sale instead of leaving it to the back office to have to address ETAs. While I would say smaller companies can get away with not having a formal quoting program, I can say it will slow your growth and require you to rethink/rework processes better established before you have staff you have to retrain.
Joe,
Iām going to answer this as a little biased, as our product, ITQuoter competes with the above mentioned products.
I think many of the reasons have been highlighted in the previous comments on why a quoting solution is important.
What all the Quoting tools offer , is a solution to stop companies from losing $$ through the simple, but sometimes overly complex process of quoting.
No matter what way you look at it, there is a cost attached to every quote you make.
Some companies severely underestimate the time itās taking even creating the simplest of quotes. And how ineffective their quote management is.
Most of these tools mentioned have their own unique tools/shortcuts and are more than just a mechanism to create a good looking quote. They offer massive reductions on the time it takes to create and manage quotes.
If your dealing with Special Bids, Online Configarators, HP, IBM etc The process becomes even more time intensive.
Why would you spend hours entering this information when it can be done in 2 clicks.?
We manage price feeds (Australia, New Zealand amp; The United Kingdom) for our clients, so when they login to ITQuoter, they will see there relevant pricing. No time wasted searching websites, uploading price lists. It also alerts you when prices changes in your quotes.
Due to demand from our client base, we have recently completed an integration into Connectwise, with other systems to follow.
With the amount of feature requests for ITQuoter, and questions relating to integration into Connectwise, Autotask, Tigerpaw etc etc I receive on a weekly basis, I think the topic is as hot and important as ever.
Gary Henderson
Sales Manager
iSell Pty Ltd
[email protected]
Hi there Gary–
We are a VAR
Hi there Gary–
We are a VAR and MSP for mostly small and mid-market based clientele, and are looking for an efficient solution to combine the quoting and managing process. What is your experience with ITQuoter? We are looking into ConnectWise with Quosal, but I’ve been reading that while Quosal is an amazing tool, it can be overly complicated and takes many months to take advantage of the features. Any insight would be helpful.
Jessica Soltanieh || Mibura, Inc. || Inside Sales Engineer || [email protected]
Our company came to QuoteWerks after establishing ourselves a small business built on Excel spreadsheets (sounds just like how Robert’s business above).
Absolutely, you can run a company (as well as being the tech, and the marketer, and the cleaner, and the salesmen) without any tools whatsoever; but how many of us today would be without RMM / PSA solutions?
We can all get our businesses so far with spending the necessary time on tasks, but introducing tools make them much more cost effective and efficient.
With QuoteWerks (linked to CW) we can now give more information on our quotes to the client and with less time spent.
I guess that Quosal is better in some instances, and worse in others, but we went with QuoteWerks due to the reassurance by other users talking about their positive experiences with the product and the people.
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With advanced quoting, order management, e-commerce and online marketing functionality, it links your own supply chain for increased efficiencies, unleashing the potential for increased profitability, competitiveness, and customer satisfaction.
Sourcing and Quoting in one web based application helps you sell more while finding the best pricing live from your top suppliers like Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Synnex. With Standard and Custom sourcing connection wizards you can connect live to any authorized supplier’s inventory for quick quote creation.
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Managers can easily view and manage their sales teams performance from one dashboard console.
We offer many high level benefits for serious IT VARS growing their IT business. More quotes and the best pricing is essential in today’s IT sales environment.
[email protected]
So people seem to agree that quoting is an important part of the overall process and those that have invested in it truly value the tool within their business. (I wholly agree.)
BUT “can you run an IT services business without those types of quoting tools?” – absolutely, yes. And very successfully. So… as comparied to contact management, accounting, service management, RMM, PSA, SOP, POP and lots of other business support software tools, let alone the hardware investment requirements – is “quoting” a luxury item?
Thanks, Steve
[email protected]
http://www.hilltopsit.co.uk/quotewerks
Guys,
Good thread. Question for you, “What methodology do you use to forecast?” A dart board? Based on % of pipe? Based on history? A % of sales rep forecast or commit #’s? Whatever your SFA/PSA tool tells you? You don’t?
best,
Todd Hussey
Folks: As usual I’m reading all comments and taking notes for future potential coverage. Thanks for all the perspectives shared so far.
-jp
I have used QuoteWerks for years. I also run a user group of IT companies, many of which are QuoteWerks users, and a few of which moved to Quosal a couple of years ago, thinking they were making a good move. My observation has been that almost every one of them came back to QuoteWerks!
The bottom line is that in my experience, the guys at QuoteWerks go out of thier way to listen to thier clients and take action on those discussions. They always have time to work with you, and to make things easier for you.
I have had quite a few discussions with John and Brian at conferences, and it never fails that shortly after, I see a relase with a new function that evolved from a discussion that began with me saying “you know, it would be really cool if QuoteWerks could do ….”.
I wish all our vendors had the customer service skills that QuoteWerks has. You can definately put me in the catagory of “Raving Fan”!
For any IT business they need to have a quoting tool. I have partners that use Word. While I have used a tool for quoting ever since opening our doors. We started out on QuoteDesk (1998-2001), then Channel Online (2001-2005), then QuoteWerks (2005). While each one did the job at the time, we were moving in the direction of having everything into one system ConnectWise. QuoteWerks has always integrated into ConnectWise. When QuoteWerks took over the integration that is when it really started to add features that I have wanted for a while.
It has been amazing working with a company care that the product they put out works. When I have had issues, and sent in a e-mail, I have had calls after hours to help work through them. Not all have been fixed on the phone, but the patch has normally been next day. Which is great.
I could not see running an IT consulting company without great tools like QuoteWerks and ConnectWise.
Jay – I am curious as to your
Jay – I am curious as to your experience of exporting your data out of Channel Online and getting it into Quotewerks – did you do this or what did you do about your historical data?
We have used QuoteWerks since we purchased ConnectWise. I’m in the user group that Shawn stated and after viewing the other product, decided not to move. Overall, QuoteWerks was the most friendliness and easiest to work with and didn’t talk down to me at multiple vendor events that I attended in 2010. I respect that in a vendor and will continue to value our relationship with QuoteWerks. I’m also laughing at the others in our user group that left and are switching back. š
Not every product is for everyone, otherwise we would only have one automotive manufacture, and competition is defiantly king in the channel as it’s helping to start giving the var channel what we have been asking and needing for years.
Cheers!
Looking for some honest feedback regarding quosal vs quoteworks and labtech vs gfi.
Well none of it is any good for IT these days. They can’t keep up with the data feed changes.
I’d like to state the
I’d like to state the bleeding obvious as a micro msp (that’s a one man business)..
Quoting software is a critical component of my business, tried it all, spreadsheets, word doc template, access database, filemaker pro database, the lot over the last 20 years.
Only 2 products I believe are worth it, I currently use Quotewerks, but you need to spend the time or get a certified consultant to set it up, but its is well worth the effort, I can see outstanding quotes in a flash and followup the client etc.
I only wish there was SOME integration with our local suppliers but I understand in Australia we are small fish.
Second i’d love to be able to tell you more on the ITQuoter software by iSell, seen a demo, read all the documentation, wanted it BAD!!! but alas they priced me out of their business.
Yes I can see the benefits of their integration and all that stuff and this products looks to be THE IT guy’s best friend but if like me you only quote limited stuff a couple times a week than its way too expensive.
So, I my humble opinion, Quotewerks is brilliant for the price and what you get, invest the time learn how to import price lists from CSV (and you do learn) to make quoting a breeze.
Leo
We’re an Irish MSP and use
We’re an Irish MSP and use ConnectWise(cloud), Quotewerks (with quote valet), LabTech(cloud) and sage.
With ConnectWise and happy for about 4 years.
Quintadena did the CW/QW integration 3 years ago- great job
Moved from GFI to LabTech in 2013. Big learning for us here was to turn off the noise from every single monitor available and simply act on the key alerts.
Always used sage.
None are 100% perfect but with our internal skill sets in applying workflows and good back end support from all suppliers, we get the job done and systems tweaked the way we want.