Within Simplicate it is possible to have a quote digitally signed by the customer, eliminating the need to print out a quote.
Quote template
If you go to settings > quote templates, you will also find a tab ‘E-mail’.
Since you use the same email template for both the option Send by email (PDF attached) and the option Approve online, it may be useful to create two templates so you can adjust the default email to the sending method. Of course, it is always possible to adjust the email at the time you want to send it.
For the email that is sent when using Approve online, it is important to communicate to the customer that the quote is not in the attachment but can be found under the button View and sign this quote.
On this page you can adjust the button name, button color and text color. It is also possible to add the approval button in the email as a placeholder. This way the button will appear exactly where you want it.
The customer will then see the quote appear in his/her email as follows:
Creating a new sales process
After the template has been created, quotes can be sent that are suitable for digital signing. To do this, go to the Sales module and click the ‘New’ button in the top right corner to create a new sales process.
In the pop-up below, select the company or person for whom the sales process is being created and to whom the quote will be sent.
In the next screen, with regard to digitally signing the quote, it is important that at least the following fields are filled in:
Responsible
Divergent payment condition (if direct debit)
Company/Person
Contact person
Below is a brief explanation for each field on why it must be filled in within the context of digitally signing the quote by the client.
Responsible
The person responsible for this process receives an email as soon as a quote has been signed by the customer. From the email, they can directly click to open the corresponding sales process and take further actions there.
Divergent payment condition
If a direct debit is to be carried out for this sales process, by specifying a payment condition in the sales process, the customer can be asked to directly enter the correct IBAN number while signing the quote. In this way, the invoice can be automatically collected, since the customer has given consent for a SEPA mandate via digital signing.
Company/person and contact person
The choice in this field determines to whom the quote will be sent. If you also want to send the quote to a specific contact person of a company, then the contact person must be correctly filled in.
Once the above has been completed on the ‘General’ tab, the ‘Services’ tab can be used to determine which services will be delivered.
Sending a quote
Once the ‘General’ and ‘Services’ tabs have been completed, go to the ‘Quotes’ tab.
Click on ‘New’ and select the desired quote template in the next screen. Note: this template cannot be changed later.
After adding, you can open and further edit the quote. Is the quote ready to be sent? Then click the green ‘Send quote’ button in the top right corner.
After clicking the ‘Send quote’ button, you will see three options.
Print PDF
Send by email (PDF as attachment)
Approve online
One of the options is ‘Approve online’. When you select this, the pop-up below will appear:
In this pop-up you have the option to check ‘Require SEPA mandate’. More explanation about this option can be found later in this article under the heading ‘Divergent payment condition: Direct debit’.
When you decide to send the quote, the recipient will receive an email with the option to view and sign the quote.
After the customer has clicked the button, (a personalized version of) the screen below will be displayed:
How to personalize this portal can be read here:
After signing the quote, the customer receives a confirmation email with the signed quote attached:
Divergent payment condition: Direct debit
If the divergent payment condition on the sales process is set to ‘direct debit’, then when sending the quote via ‘Approve online’ the option ‘Require SEPA mandate’ will appear.
If you check ‘Require SEPA authorisation’, the customer must enter the IBAN in the digital signing screen to agree to both the quote and the direct debit.
If the ‘Require SEPA authorisation’ checkbox is not selected, the customer will not be able to enter an IBAN in the digital signing screen and therefore cannot agree to the direct debit.
In this second case, the IBAN entered in the CRM for the relevant relation will be used. If no IBAN or an incorrect IBAN has been entered there, you will receive an error message in your accounting system stating that the direct debit cannot be processed.
You can read more about automatic direct debit, types of direct debit, direct debit settings in Simplicate, and Simplicate’s recommendations in this article:
If the quote is accepted, all fields on the right-hand side must be completed in full. When the customer clicks ‘Give approval’, a confirmation of the signature will be displayed.
In Settings > Account > Notifications, you can configure whether you want to receive a notification when a quote has been approved. If you also want to receive an email about this, you can set that in your profile. You can access your profile by clicking your photo or initials (in the top right corner of the Simplicate environment).
If the customer has entered an IBAN that differs from the IBAN that was previously known, it will automatically be updated in the CRM module. This change will be shown on the relation’s timeline so you can trace what the previous IBAN was.
Monitoring of sent quotes for signing
After a quote has been sent to the customer for signing, it must be monitored by the responsible employee.
In Sales > Open you can see in the overview per sales process what the status is of the sent quotes. Using the filter options on the right-hand side, you can easily gain insight into different quote statuses:
Note: The status of a quote is separate from the progress of a sales process. For example, the status of a quote may be ‘approved’ while the progress stage is set to ‘negotiation’.
Every employee who has a number of ongoing sales processes, in which the status of the quote is expired or approved, can see this clearly through the indicator on the Open tab in the Sales module.
Quote status approved
If the client has approved the quote, this will be visible in several places:
In the overview of Open sales, the line will state ‘Quote approved’
The employee responsible for this client can set up a notification under Settings > Account > Notifications. It is also possible to receive an email. This must be set up in your profile (top right in the Simplicate environment) and only works if you have also enabled the notification.
In addition, a timeline message will appear on the timeline of the relevant sales process stating who approved the quote. A message is also placed on the timeline when the recipient has viewed the quote.
A copy of the quote can also be found on the Documents tab within the relevant sales process:
An additional page has been added to the quote with the confirmation of the signature:
After the customer’s approval, you must update the progress of the sales process yourself and carry out any follow-up actions. This article describes how to do this.
Quote status expired
If the quote has the status ‘expired’, this can have several causes:
The quote has reached its final expiration date
The sales responsible has manually set the quote to expired
A new quote has been sent to the client and the old quote has thereby been automatically set to expired (this is only visible in the overview of quotes within the sales process)
In all cases, a timeline message is added to the timeline of the relevant sales process. This way it remains visible what the reason was for the quote being given the status ‘expired’.