Quote-Hour Checkup / Resources / Quoting process
What a quote clerk actually does all day: the 9 steps from enquiry to quote
Owners usually know exactly two things: a customer asked, and a sales rep sent a price.
What happened in between? Nobody can describe it in full — not even the person doing it. And a process you cannot describe is a cost you cannot count.
Below is a generic teardown template (9 steps) for a B2B trading or wholesale business. Walk your own company through it and you will "see" the vanished hours for the first time.
The generic 9 steps (template; the real version is confirmed on a site walkthrough)
| # | Step | Who does it | Typical time | Handover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enquiry arrives (chat, phone, email) | Sales rep | 2–5 min | Jotted into a chat thread or onto paper |
| 2 | Qualify: existing or new account? Standard or custom? | Sales rep / owner | 1–3 min | Decides whether the owner has to be asked |
| 3 | Dig up history: the last quote, the Excel price list | Sales rep | 3–10 min | Often not found — so a colleague gets asked |
| 4 | Confirm cost, stock and lead time with suppliers | Sales rep / purchasing | 5–30 min (incl. waiting) | One chat message, then wait for a reply |
| 5 | Work out discount, freight, tax and tier pricing | Sales rep / owner | 3–10 min | By hand, or a brittle spreadsheet formula |
| 6 | Build the quote: template, data entry, formatting | Sales rep | 5–15 min | Everyone's format is slightly different |
| 7 | Internal approval: owner or manager signs off | Owner | 0.5–4 hours of waiting | The approver is in a meeting, on the floor, or travelling |
| 8 | Send to the customer and chase a response | Sales rep | 2–5 min + several follow-ups | Chat or email |
| 9 | Quote becomes an order: re-enter into ERP/stock system, file it | Sales rep / clerk | 5–15 min | The same figures typed a second time |
The times are typical industry ranges (estimates). Two patterns show up immediately: ① most of the time is not "pricing" — it is finding data, waiting for a reply, and re-typing; ② the longest wait usually sits with one person: the owner.
Three observations you can verify on the spot
1) Arithmetic is not what eats the time — carrying data is. Steps 3, 6 and 9 all re-enter the same numbers in different places. The dullest stretches are exactly the ones a system can absorb — and they are usually the fastest win.
2) Step 7 is the invisible bottleneck. Approval waits on one person. When that person is unavailable, quoting stops — and that person is usually the busiest in the company.
3) Step 2 sets the ceiling. The more exceptions there are (custom items, ad-hoc discounts, special accounts), the lower the share a system can absorb. That is why a diagnostic asks "what share of cases is standard?" instead of accepting "it is mostly the same".
How to turn this into numbers
For every step, record three things — who does it, how long it takes, who it goes to — plus waiting time and whether a human judgement is mandatory.
- frequency x minutes / 60 = weekly hours for that step;
- cover two weeks, at least 20 orders, take the median, get both sides to sign the baseline.
Within a day you have a far harder account than "we feel busy".
Get a first number with the free tool: fill in four figures (industry, monthly cost, times per week, minutes per run) and see a result in 30 seconds (estimate). If it looks worth a closer look, book 30 minutes and I will walk these 9 steps with you against your own numbers — free, just 30 minutes.
The 9 steps here are a generic template; most companies merge or split them. The times are typical ranges (estimates). Everything is subject to the on-site walkthrough and the baseline both sides sign.
Not sized your own process yet? Run the free 30-second Quote-Hour Checkup.
Want the full Quote-Process Checkup report (9-step breakdown, peer ranges, human-review checkpoints, a 30-minute interview)? Send one email — a human replies within one business day.
Ask for the reportFigures in this article are estimates and follow the same definition we quote under; contribution rates and salaries vary by country and sector, and the actual saving is subject to the on-site walkthrough and the Baseline Confirmation both sides sign. References and credentials available in person.