A lot of our customers are looking for a way to predict Latest Projected Cost, before even quoting the customer. This way they can charge the appropriate amount to their customers, and can estimate their profit. We created a tool just for this called the Price Estimate Tool.
In the sourcing request in VISCO, you will choose the vendor you are making the request to, and then the products. In the ‘Links’ Tab there is an item called ‘Create Price Estimate’. This link will open up a macro-enabled workbook in excel that will automatically fill in the information entered previously in the sourcing request. Information such as the Quantity, Price Per Unit and product name for each item.
If the sourcing request is tied to an opportunity (an initial inquiry made for a customer, vendor or product) the customer and sales person chosen in the opportunity will come into the spreadsheet automatically as well.
The user can then either through hard coded percentages, or manual entry, calculate the estimated additional charges that will be applied to these products by time of delivery to customer. So for example, the default sheet as you can see below has a few items such as insurance, freight, Warehouse or trucking.
The tool adds the total cost of the material and then all additional charges to get a total. Dividing by the requested quantity gives the user the cost per unit. Next, the user is able to add a mark up percentage to the cost per unit in order to provide them with a target price to quote customers.
When creating the quote to the customer, the user in VISCO can associate the offer which will then bring in the target price estimated within the tool into the quote without any additional data entry.
Since this worksheet saves to the cloud, anyone can view or correct the estimated price at any time.
*For more information on Quotations, Sourcing and Opportunities, please visit our blog page about this topic: CRM Tools for Global Trade
