Custom Quote Template Beta

jmclaren
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hey all,

As we work on iterating and improving this functionality we want to make sure we're solving for your needs. We want to hear your feedback.

 

Was there anything you expected to be able to do with custom quote templates that you couldn't?

What was the main reason you wanted to create a custom quote template?

If you had a magic wand, what is the highest priority change you would want to see happen to this functionality? 

Do you have prior experience building on HubSpot's CMS? Does it feel like a natural extension of that experience or does it feel weird/confusing?

If you had a magic wand and could change anything about the quotes feature of HubSpot, what would it be? can be templates related, could be billing frequency options, could be the interface, anything

Jon McLaren

Sr. CMS Developer Advocate

Get started developing on the HubSpot CMS Developer Changelog
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1 Accepted solution
RussJB
Participant

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi 

If I'm understanding you correctly. this is already possible. 

For example. 

{{ DEAL.dealname }} will pull in the Name given to the deal. 

You can also pull in your custom properties using the same method. {{ DEAL.custom_property }}. custom_property is the internal identifier of the property. credit to @amandaulm for this solution. 

 

I'm struggling to pull in all the properties selected from a multi-select custom property adding a special character (' / -) between them at the moment but date/ text, the multiline text seems good. 

 

Hope this helps. 

72 Replies 72
Rafael_K
Participant

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi and thank you very much for the invitation, 

We have really high hopes for the Hubspot Quotes providing further solutions, as our current process is rather complex and we have been looking for a solution for quite a while now without finding a perfect match yet! (Looked at Proposify, Docugen, Drawloop, Pandadoc, Niftyquoter...)

 

We use Salesforce quotes, add quote line items (products), 3 images that change for every quote we make and have the quote generated via Conga composer, this gets send by email to the customer, and  should he wish to sign, send again via Docusign. 

 

Here you can find a  Demo Quote


The issue are the images that we create for each quote, with the customer roof design (for Solar), their irridiation and production graph. These pictures are created in a specific software (aurora solar) and screenshots taken, saved with a specific file name: 

Picture 1: Project number - Customer name - roof.jpg  - roof - defines the picture on page 2

Picture 2:  Project number - Customer name - irradiance map.jpg  - -irradiance map- defines the picture on page 7

Picture 3:  Project number - Customer name - production.jpg  - -production- defines the 2nd picture on page 7


and uploaded manually to Salesforce to the specific quote. 

 

Conga composer recognizes these images in a tagged template and introduces the images/information in the specified fields. 
Here are the details tags 

The second issue is our product library has images attached to the products, with technical details that is displayed within the quote depending on which products are selected. (Pages 5,6 and 10). 

 

The products on page 5,6 are shown again in page 14 for the pricing table. On page 15 they have so called "Extras" that they could ad to the pricing on page 14, but need to be "manually" calculated together. 


If it where possible to find a solutions for the images and the products, we could move our current worklow for quote processing to Hubspot, allowing us to become more effective in sending out our proposals. 

An alternative could be to allow the upload of a PDF to the quotes, and select a place for the customer to sign, as Docusign offers. 

Feel free to reach out if you have questions or need more information. 

thanks in advance and good luck with the excellent work!

0 Upvotes
StephanCR
Participant

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi @jmclaren. Great work with the custom quotes functionality. I want to emphasise that the remark from @InviseAgency in relation to languages is quite important to us. We need a German version of the quote. For instance we need "monthly" to be "monatlich" etc. 

Maybe it would be possible to add languages as a "Global language" feature into your "theme previewer"? So that languages could be easily changed, similar to changing "Global fonts". This would also make changing languages as simple as it is in your Standard templates.

 

Regards

Stephan

 

 

 

 

finn
Top Contributor

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

The availability of custom quotes raises also some needs to control the options in the general quote UI:

  • Quote template selection: it should be possible to lock down the template(s) shown as option(s). Going through the efforts of making custom quote templates means we don't want the "standard" templates. Also, quote template selection should vary by sales pipeline, so e.g. templates1 and 2 are available for pipeline1 and templates3 and 4 are available for pipeline2
  • Domain: this is should be set with one standard value. Not allowing the regular sales person to choose between 5 different domains, of which some are internal.
  • It should be possible for the SuperAdmin (or quote template writer) to disable the boxes for "Comments to buyer" and "Purchase terms". We supply everything in the template and don't need sales execs to write something that potentially is even contradictory to the template's terms.
  • It must be possible to lock down that "create custom line item" is not a possibility. Either generally or per template. Custom line items opens up a huge loophole for crazy discounting and other non-policy sales offerings.
  • It must be possible to lock down (i.e. prevent) use of discounts, so some quotes cannot discount. Poor practice and effectively makes approval mandatory if all sales execs can invent their own discounts.

thanks

 

0 Upvotes
Leigh_Simpson
Contributor | Platinum Partner
Contributor | Platinum Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE
Control of discounts, or sign off is important.

Agree also on ability to hide buyer comments and purchase terms fields
CRivera
Member

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi Jon,

 

Thanks for the invite to the group.

 

Some of the needs my company is asking are the following:

 

Ability  to add attachments

Terms & Conditions section

Additional terms section

Separate inception & expiration for each line item

Ability to structure individual page order

 

ethankopit
HubSpot Product Team
HubSpot Product Team

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

@CRivera you could create custom properties for inception and expiration for line items using Product property settings. Would that work (Line Items inherit the properties of their parent products). 

 

We'll be working on the ability to add attachements, but you could custom code that (as well as a terms and conditions section, additional terms section) if need be.

0 Upvotes
CRivera
Member

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

how can I code that into the template to appear after the quote?

0 Upvotes
ethankopit
HubSpot Product Team
HubSpot Product Team

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hey team! 

 

Ethan here (Product Manager of Quotes). I just wanted to thank you for engaging with us so much on this beta and providing the feedback above - please keep it coming! We're actively working on much of the feedback above, some of which will be released as part of this beta (e.g. choosing which templates a rep is allowed to use) and some will be released outside of this beta (e.g. more options in Automation around Quotes/E-signature/Payments). Please continue to make your voice heard! I read every post and this community is a big part of how we're prioritizing our roadmap!

Marine
Participant

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hello,


Here's what I posted in another thread:

 

After using the tool for a few weeks now, here below are my open items. Most of them are related to our customized template. The context is that our external reps are creating the quotes and we need the tool to be as easy to use as possible and only have our customized options available to avoid confusion:

 

  • Deal window: can we see our template and not the blue template as a preview?
  • Quote template: can we have our customized Quote Template  to be the only choice. Some of our reps are choosing the wrong template (usually first one on the list) and send this to the customer which is a big deal as these templates are not at all customized for our use.
  • Unit Discount (in line items): Main open request: we’d like to auto-populate the customer discount in this cell when we choose the unit (customers have different discounts per type of products). For now we added the customer discounts in the company view on left panel so the rep has to go in the company view, note the discount, go back in the quote and add the discount.
  • Final PDF Download: Very ugly, can we make it fit in one page and if note, make the cut better placed and not in the middle of a box.
  • Recall and Edit: This option only updates the same quote but doesn’t update the quote name + date. We need to have a new quote name to be able to follow what was quoted and what was finally sold.
  • Quote worklfow: VERY limited. Need to be able to send notifications to the contact owner in addition to quote owner (our quote owners are inside sales and are not following up with customers).

Thank you!

Marine

JAlonso
Participant

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi Jon,

 

Here are some ideas that can help HS to create a better quote:

 

  • Fix titles. Sometimes deal names are not ideal. A fixed header could help to standardized it.
  • Bring deal properties into the quote. Such as bank account, bank name, etc.
  • Calculate prices. One price per item is accurate, but very often, our customers have unique discounts. So it would be great if we can do a calculation based on some previous parameters or values on the company properties.
  • Quantities with decimals allowed. Decimals are not allowed, and you may have fraction quantities. 
  • Be able to print different columns. We should be able to select which columns we want to be printed

 

  • Thanks

 

 

Samanderson41
Contributor | Diamond Partner
Contributor | Diamond Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi Jon,

 

There are a few big ones that stand out for us in terms of the usability for the sales reps:

  • Shipping versus Billing contacts: We found a work around where we customized the quote to pull in the contacts shipping and billing info from their profile, and if they are different contacts we are telling the sales rep to only put in shipping versus billing (and vice versa) for those contacts. They work with a lot of resellers that are the biller, but not the end recipient. Their quotes are going to their Quickbooks so need this information. Ideally we'd be able to select the billing contact and the shipping contact separately when creating the quote. 
  • Default template - Sales has to remember to change to the new custom template. There isn't a way to set this. 
  • Default expiration - It defaults to 90-days and they want it to expire in 30 -- again, room for user error as we can't set this 
  • Custom quote url hidden - Sales has no idea what this is. I'd love to just hide it or make it default. 

That's it for now! Everyone mentioned other functionality, so I wanted to add something new. 

 

ethankopit
HubSpot Product Team
HubSpot Product Team

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

@Samanderson41 thanks for the feedback! GOOD NEWS: There's now a setting to set default expiration. Check it out in Quote Settings (any value 1 - 365 days is accepted. We're working on default template. Completely agree that custom quote URL should be hidden.

Have you considered using company fields for shipping and billing address rather than shipping and billing contacts?

Samanderson41
Contributor | Diamond Partner
Contributor | Diamond Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Perfect! 

 

Yes, we did consider it but they are shipping machines and they often have multiple locations for one company and it would be difficult to manage the shipping addresses that way, so in the end we decided to go the contact route. We implemented a work-around to pull in the shipping and billing information from the contact, even a C/O field for shipping if that contact doesn't need to be on the invoice (such as a lead in the shipping depot). 

0 Upvotes
himanigupta
Contributor

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi Team,

 

We are currently using Pandadoc integration just because HS was quite restrictive. We are very much interested to have customizable columns that can be amended with the text, This shouldn't be dependent on the product object. For example. Our product do not have one stanadard term date, The customer can ask our services for any duration so the term column provided in the product cannot be used as it cannot be changed while developing the quotes. We are really interested to have real time text editor for the columns in the quote section so that we can amend the term dates, product description accordingly. 

Leigh_Simpson
Contributor | Platinum Partner
Contributor | Platinum Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE
Customisable columns gets my vote.

0 Upvotes
ethankopit
HubSpot Product Team
HubSpot Product Team

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hey @himanigupta - can you help me understand " The customer can ask our services for any duration so the term column provided in the product cannot be used as it cannot be changed while developing the quotes" a bit better? When you're using your template to generate quotes, you can adjust the "term" field on Line Items to be any number of months.

AdamSteinhardt
Participant | Diamond Partner
Participant | Diamond Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi Jon, we would like to get Negative Quantities for line items to be possible to allow discount lines to show. Is this possible?


Regards

Adam S 

CEO The Kingdom - HubSpot Diamond Partner, Adelaide, Sydney, Irvine.
jmclaren
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi Adam, thanks for the feedback.  Could you clarify what you're intending it to display like?

 

I would think you'd want to use the discount feature instead. If you put a negative quantity on a service it would look like you owe the recipient money.

Jon McLaren

Sr. CMS Developer Advocate

Get started developing on the HubSpot CMS Developer Changelog
How to optimize your CMS Hub site for speed

If my reply answered your question, please mark it as a solution, to make it easier for others to find.

0 Upvotes
AdamSteinhardt
Participant | Diamond Partner
Participant | Diamond Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

Hi John, yep, the use case example is when you want to show a hero line item that has a discount as a separate line. Our customer sells Broadband plans. 12 months at $50. The want to give away the first three months. So the second line would be 3 * -50. They don't want it to effect the overall 12 months price as that is subscription. They need to show it attached to the top line, not as a final discount or a discount on the line item itself.   If we could enter negative numbers as an amount on products that would solve all problems!.  

 

Cheers

Adam S

CEO The Kingdom - HubSpot Diamond Partner, Adelaide, Sydney, Irvine.
Ben_Rigsby
Participant | Platinum Partner
Participant | Platinum Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE

I have started to build these out for a few clients and in doing so, have run into a few things that would be helpful:

 

  • Is there a resource or listing of the development tags similiar tot he HS resources on HubL tags? I find myself needing to pull in different dynamic data beyond what is being used in the example templates (Product Details, Custom Properties attached to the deal, Associated Company Details....etc)
  • It would be SUPER nice to add in some other dynamic fields for the quote creator to fill out and then it populate on the quote - again similar to the finctionality that HubL modules or even template tags affrods in the Landing Pages editor.
  • I shoehorned a form into the quote to collect some other details a client needed the prospect to fill out as part of the signing process. That said, its not the most elegant solution and the form submission lives seperatly than the signed quote. It would be nice to have the ability to add in some form fileds beyond just name and signature.
  • If they cant pay through CC or Stripe, can their be an area for ACH, Check...etc. type information that transimitts securly?

Thats all I got! I will say as it is now, its a game changer for the clients Im working with so THANK YOU!!!

Leigh_Simpson
Contributor | Platinum Partner
Contributor | Platinum Partner

What do you think of the custom quotes functionality right now?

SOLVE
Stripe doesn’t support recurring invoices, which is limiting.

What other payment services can be used for esignature? PayPal, GoCardless. Are they a possibility?
0 Upvotes