Don’t know about Apps 10, but we solved similar issues in Apps9 by using non-inventory sales part for quoting, if we require new part to be sold that has not been made in the system, or its third party part and there’s low change for actual order.

So, we created non-inventory sales part “S1200 - New spare part sales” or “S1000 - New service sales” just for quoting purposes. On Sales quotation you may change the description and price freely.

hi @GGS 

Have you considered using the Business Opportunity instead, with the non-existing part option?

The main drawback is there is no standard output document for the opportunity.  But you can work around that with a custom report of some kind.

We have the same scenario and we decided to use Business Opportunity instead of Sales Quotation.  We also use Estimate to support some quote scenarios.  We quote straight parts and things we build.  We do not create a part until we receive an order.

We initially built an IFS report to be our proposal document.  Now we use a Word document with macros and document management to build the proposal.

Since we don’t use Sales Quotation at all, we used custom fields to add some additional fields we needed in the quote to order step (example - supply code), and created a custom event to automatically copy those values over to the order on create.

Need to clarify that we are using Sales Quotation only for spare parts or simple service quotes because of its simple process and it does notmatterif same quote have existing parts as well. Then when/if customer orders an non-existent part, we will create new “actual" parts to system. Projects, modifications etc bigger sales processes are quoted with business opportunity

@TPLaine  thanks for your response.

So you are using Sales Quote by using non-existing parts early on and replacing them with actual parts when there is an order.

You are also using Business Opportunity to quote when there is a bigger project / process involved.

Since you are using both potential solutions could you comment on some of the benefits / disadvantages of each?

Also, when you update the description or price of a non-inventory part on a Sales quotation, can you confirm that does not sync back to the part master and we could use the same non-inventory “generic part” across multiple different quotes?

@jhooperyan Thanks for your response.

Using business opportunity to quote seems to be a potent solution.

Could you comment on why did you move away from using a Word document with Macros as against modifying the IFS report from Business Opportunity to the taste?

@GGS  Our business ranges from maintenance (list of parts needed to repair) to large projects (needing additional sections around the bill of materials). 

When we went live with Apps10 UPD2, we created an IFS Report designer report and used an RMB to run it.  But, based on a variety of business needs around format/content - we found a group of our users were spending a lot of time editing the PDF. 

Once we moved up to Apps10 UPD6, IFS had the tools we needed to build the Word template instead.  Using Word helps us 2 ways.  First, when editing is needed, it’s much easier to edit Word and then print to PDF when it’s done.  The other is we have the Word development skills in house, and we have to contract out IFS Reports. For simple stuff, users still use the IFS report, but Word has made the more complex quotes much more efficient.

When I find the time, I’d like to experiment with Business Reporter, create an IAL for the proposal and pull it into Excel for situations where we just need a long list with a simple header.

@paul harland  Thanks for your response.

I haven’t looked into this specifically yet but sounds like Business Opportunity to quote could be a very viable solution.

How would you compare this solution against using a non-inventory part on Sales Quotation. This would probably eliminate need for a custom report from sales quotation and also potentially any need for custom fields on Opportunity to mirror the quoting functionality. What do you think?

Hi @GGS  - something to think about if you are going to quote using an NISP part in Sales Quotation.  Will you be creating a new part if the quote is won?  If Sales Quotation works the same way as Customer Order, you can’t change the part# on an existing item, so you might have to recreate the line item once it is won.  In Business Opportunity, we update the non-existing part line with the part number.

Yes, we would be creating a new part once quote is won.
It is a great point that if NISP on a quote line cant be replaced by an ‘actual’ part number then the effort would involve replacing the whole line as against just the part if its on the Business Opportunity. I wonder if there is a line copy function. I’ll check.

Another thing I’ll check is whether the NISP price (and description) on a quote would sync back to the NISP master in the likely event the same generic NISP is used across multiple quotes. I doubt it would sync back.

Thanks!

Wow lot’s of discussions here.

@GGS  On my expertise (spare part sales and maintenance services), I  think that both forms has their place and both is usable and best way depends a lot how your company works and how you are managing your parts in IFS.

Regarding Sales Quotation and using NIPS, it  is true that you must cancel the original NISP line when adding the new created item. To our company that is not an issue cause we have somewhat limited need for NISP for spares as most of the actual parts have been created. Not deliverable NISP items like services, work hours etc. are used daily at the moment (and can be used on multiple orders with different description/prices). Just recently we have created more service NISP items for WO’s, earlier all our maintenance services were quoted and sold using one NISP.

That offer easy way to make simple and fast quotes/orders.

Then our project and modification sales are using Business Opportunity (customized, mostly added more sales preview functions). That’s maybe better option if you are mostly selling items that do not have part id yet or projects etc.