Creating Brand Comparison Quotes

You can compare the prices of competing brands by creating a comparison quote. In this scenario, the quote can be used to provide tread life ratings for different tires, show the relationship among prices, or both. All of the quoted items are displayed on the screen at the same time, and information for all of the quoted items is included on one printout.

To create a comparison quote of competing brands

1. Select Maintenance from the Inventory menu. The Custom Inventory Lookup screen appears.

2. Look up a group of items with similar characteristics. The Inventory List appears. For more information, see Looking Up Inventory Items.

Example: Look up all size P215/60R16 tires for a customer’s Chevy Malibu.

3. Select the tires you want to include on the comparison quote.

a. Press the Ctrl key and select the first tire.

b. Continue pressing the Ctrl key and select one or more additional tires.

4. Click Quote. The Quote and Estimate Writer opens and displays a quote for each of the selected items.

5. Click to enlarge the quote (top) panel. This button is located on the right side of the screen between the quote and checklist panels.

6. Enter the following information as needed:

The customer’s name, vehicle, phone number, and tax level
An expiration date for the quote, the salesperson, and any notes that may be needed

For more information, see Creating Single Item Quotes.

7. If you want to see the profit margin for quoted items on the screen, select the View Margin check box. If the margin is too low, you can adjust it. For more information, see Adjusting a Quoted Item’s Margin.

Note: The check box can be selected only by users who belong to a security group that’s assigned the permission Quotes View Margin.

8. For each item on the quote, make the following changes as needed:

Type the quantity and press Enter. TireMaster updates the quantities of the add-ons items.

Note: If there are no add-ons assigned to an item, you can add them to the quote. Select the quote to which you want to add the add-on items. Then click Add-ons and select an add-on package from the list that appears.

Type different prices, FET, or both.
To offer special pricing on an item using a global price level, select the item and click Price Levels.
To change whether sales tax is calculated for an item’s part price, labor price, both, or none, click in the Tax column for that item and repeatedly press .
To exclude an add-on item from the quote, clear its check box.

9. Enter identifying information for each quote, if needed.

a. To classify the price for a quote as good, better, or best, click the Qty column in the quote’s top (blue) row and press repeatedly to find the appropriate label.

b. In the Size column’s blue row, type additional information about the quote.

Example: If you’re including a tire’s tread life, you’d type something like 50,000 Mile Tread Life.

10. If you want to add another quote to the comparison quote, do one of the following:

Click Add Quote Line. Then look up the items that you want to include on the additional quote and apply price levels and add names and descriptions, if needed.
If you want to quote the same item twice, with some variations, click Duplicate Quote Line. Then add or delete add-on items and change prices, as needed.

11. Click Save.

12. Generate a hard copy of the comparison quote.

a. Select the Auth check box for each quote that you want to include on the comparison quote printout.

b. Click Print. The Report Window opens and displays the comparison quote.

c. Print the comparison quote and close the Report Window.