What a quote is, and what it isn’t
A quote (or quotation) is the formal offer you send a customer: these products, at this price, on these terms, until this date. It usually answers a request for quotation that came in by email, by phone or through a sales rep.
It is not an order and not an invoice. If the customer accepts, they send a purchase order that cites your quote number, and the invoice comes later, when you ship. Nothing is owed on a quote, so the layout is up to you. What it cannot leave out is anything the customer needs to compare, decide and buy.
The fields of a quote format
These are the fields any business-to-business quote should carry, in the order they usually appear. If you quote from a spreadsheet or word-processor template today, check it against this list: whichever field is missing is the first thing the customer will ask about.
| Field | What to put | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Quote number | A unique, sequential number, for example Q-2026-0418. | The customer cites it on their purchase order, and you find the quote without searching the inbox. |
| Date and expiry | The issue date and the last day the prices hold. | Prices and lead times move. Without an expiry date, a customer can hold you to November’s price in March. |
| Your details | Company name, address, phone and email. | The customer knows who they are dealing with and can set you up as a supplier. |
| Customer details | Company name, contact name, account number and a reference to their request: its date, the job or the project. | The quote reaches the person who asked and can be matched to their request. |
| Line items | For each line: line number, product code, description, quantity and unit, unit price, discount and amount. | This is what the customer compares, line by line, against other suppliers’ quotes. |
| Subtotal, tax and total | The subtotal, the tax shown separately (sales tax or VAT at the rate that applies, or the exemption if the customer has given you a certificate) and the total. | It answers the usual question before it is asked: is that price before or after tax? |
| Currency | Written out: USD, CAD, MXN. | Several currencies use the $ sign. |
| Delivery | Lead time per line, where delivery happens (FOB origin or destination) and whether freight is included. | The customer schedules the job around that date. |
| Payment terms | Prepayment, deposit or credit, and how many days: Net 30, for example. | Two quotes at the same price are not worth the same if one asks for a deposit and the other gives 30 days. |
| Notes | Equivalents, substitutes and what the quote does not include. | It puts in writing how you read the request. |
| Signature | Name, title and contact details of the person who prepared or approved it. | The customer knows whom to call to place the order. |
Quote example: header and terms
The example is a lighting distributor answering a request it received by email. All of it is invented sample data: the companies, the person, the codes and the prices are not real.
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Quote number | Q-2026-0418 |
| Date | November 4, 2026 |
| Valid until | November 19, 2026 (15 days) |
| Supplier | Example Distribution Co. |
| Customer | Sample Builders Inc. · account C-1042 |
| Reference | Your email request of November 3, 2026, North Warehouse job |
| Currency | US dollars (USD). Prices before tax. |
| Delivery | Lines 1 and 2: in stock, 2 business days. Line 3: 10 business days. FOB our warehouse; freight to site not included. |
| Payment terms | Net 30 from invoice date. |
| Notes | Line 1: requested as “30W downlight, neutral white”; quoted at 4000K. Please confirm before issuing your purchase order. |
| Prepared by | Ana Lopez, sales representative · sales@example.com |
Quote example: line items and totals
Each amount is the quantity times the unit price, less the line’s discount. Tax depends on the customer and the delivery address, so it is calculated on the subtotal and shown on its own line; in this example the total is shown before tax.
| Line | Code | Description | Quantity | Unit price | Discount | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DL-30-840 | LED downlight 30W, 4000K, IP54 | 40 ea | $38.00 | 10% | $1,368.00 |
| 2 | PN-6060-40 | LED panel 2×2 ft, 40W, 4000K | 12 ea | $33.00 | — | $396.00 |
| 3 | KC-RGBW-02 | RGBW controller kit with remote | 2 ea | $18.00 | — | $36.00 |
| Subtotal | $1,800.00 | |||||
| Tax | At the applicable rate | |||||
| Total before tax, USD | $1,800.00 |
The mistakes that most often send a quote back
No expiry date. A quote with no end date leaves you tied to a price you may no longer be able to hold. Put a specific date; “prices subject to change without notice” does not tell the customer how long they have to buy.
Tax left unclear. “$38.00” can be read as before or after tax. Say “prices before tax” and show the tax on its own line. If not every line carries the same rate, or the customer is exempt, say so on the quote.
An ambiguous currency. Write USD, CAD or MXN, never the $ sign alone, especially when you sell across a border.
A description with no code, or the customer’s code without yours. If the customer asked using another brand’s part number, put your code and say it is the equivalent. Then the purchase order comes back with your code and nobody has to guess.
The list price instead of the customer’s price. If that customer has their own price list or an agreed discount, the quote should go out at their price. Fixing it later costs a phone call and, sometimes, the sale.
Promising stock you don’t have. Check availability before committing to a lead time. If a line is not in stock, say so on the quote and give the real date, as on line 3 of the example.
A quote that only lives in a spreadsheet. If it is not in your ERP, someone has to retype every line when the purchase order arrives. Built in the system from the start, the quote already has its number, its tax and its printed layout, and the sales order is created from it.
How to answer many quote requests on time
The format is the easy part. The time goes before it: reading the customer’s email or PDF, finding each product in your catalog even when it is described in other words or with another brand’s code, applying their price list, checking stock and entering it all in the ERP. With a few requests a day that is manual work; with many, they pile up, and a slow quote can arrive after the customer has already bought.
Ettore does that groundwork. It reads the quote request that arrives in the mailbox (the email text, a PDF, a spreadsheet or an image), identifies the customer in your ERP, matches every line to a code in your catalog, applies that customer’s price list, checks stock and leaves a draft quote in the ERP. A line it is unsure of is flagged for a person rather than quietly filled in.
The format stays yours, because the quote is created in your ERP with its own number and PDF. By default a person on your team reviews and approves it before it goes out, and the reply can be sent from the mailbox the request came in on. Odoo is connected today; SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics and other ERPs are on request.