Zoho CRM quotes and price books: how they fit together and what to set up first

Creating a quote, per Zoho

• In the Quotes module, click Create Quote, enter the details, add product lines under Quoted Items, then save.
• Zoho says choosing a product from the drop-down is the only way to add products to a quote.
• You can add up to 200 rows per quote and drag lines to reorder them.
• Taxes, price book discounts and descriptions fill in automatically and can be edited.
• A quote can be cloned from More, Clone.

Source: Zoho Help: Creating Quotes

Price books, per Zoho

Zoho says price books let you charge different prices for the same product depending on the contract terms for each type of customer. It distinguishes the unit price, set by the manufacturer and not changeable, from the list price, which can vary by reseller or customer. In a quote, the Price Book Lookup icon brings in a price book's list prices. Zoho's price books page says that when you create a potential you can select products from only one price book; Zoho's pages we read do not say how this applies to quotes.

Source: Zoho Help: Creating Quotes, Zoho Help: Price Books

Converting quotes, per Zoho

• Click Convert on a quote and choose Sales Order or Invoice; Mass Convert is available from the list view.
• You can set the new record's owner (by default the quote owner) and whether tags carry over.
• Zoho says to map custom quote fields to sales order or invoice fields under Quote Conversion Mapping before converting.
• A quote can show linked sales orders, activities, attachments and emails.

Source: Zoho Help: Creating Quotes

Cautions Zoho states

• Some standard fields may be hidden or read-only depending on your business process.
• Only a System Administrator can add or modify fields.
• Product search depends on spacing in names, so variants of the same name return different results.
• Users need View, Create, Edit and Delete access to the Price Books tab to use them.
• The pages we read do not state edition availability, quote templates or quote statuses; check these in your own account.

Source: Zoho Help: Creating Quotes, Zoho Help: Price Books

Before you build quoting (practical advice)

This section is advice from experience, not vendor documentation.

• Settle your product list and naming before anyone builds quotes, since search depends on names.
• Decide which customer types need separate price books before creating them.
• Set up Quote Conversion Mapping for any custom fields before the first conversion.
• Try a full quote-to-invoice run on test data, in a sandbox if you have one.
• If you also use Zoho Books or another finance tool, decide which system owns pricing.

Quotes that take too long to build?

Skyfall Labs configures products, price books, quoting and invoicing flows in Zoho CRM. Because we are a Zoho Partner, treat our view with the interest we have disclosed.