Quotation format: what to put on a quote so it converts

A quotation format is not a smaller invoice. An invoice records work already done; a quote is an offer that the other side can accept, and that difference decides what belongs on the page — a validity date, a clear scope, and an unambiguous way to say yes.

Most quotes that go unanswered are not too expensive. They are too vague to approve: the reader cannot tell exactly what they would be buying, or how long they have to decide.

The quotation format, line by line

• The word "Quotation" or "Quote", so nobody files it as an invoice, plus a unique quote number.
• Issue date and — the field most often missing — a valid-until date. Without it, a price from March can be waved at you in November.
• Your details: legal name, address, contact, and tax identifier where required.
• The client's legal entity name and address, spelled the way their finance team spells it.
• Line items: description, quantity or hours, unit price, line total. Specific enough that both sides could tick each line off on delivery.
• Subtotal, tax shown as its own line, any discount, and the total in the agreed currency.
• What is not included — the two lines that prevent most scope arguments.
• Lead time or delivery window, and what you need from the client to start.
• Payment terms: deposit, milestones, net days.
• How to accept: sign and return, reply in writing, or issue a purchase order. Say which one.

Give the client one number, not a range. A range communicates uncertainty and is read as the higher figure anyway. If the scope is genuinely unknown, quote a fixed price for a scoping phase and quote the rest afterwards.

Quote, estimate, proforma — which one you are sending

An estimate is an informed guess and can change. A quotation is a firm offer at a fixed price for a defined scope, and once accepted it forms a contract. A proforma invoice is a request for payment before delivery, often used for prepayment or customs, and is not a tax invoice.

Mixing them up is expensive in both directions: label a guess as a quotation and you may be held to it, label a firm offer as an estimate and the client will treat your price as negotiable.

The routine that gets quotes accepted

1. Confirm the scope in writing before you price it, and quote against those words rather than your own summary.
2. Send it the same day the conversation happened. Speed reads as competence, and most work is awarded to whoever replies first with something concrete.
3. Send a PDF, not an editable document — a quote that can be altered is a quote that will be.
4. Name the acceptance method and the valid-until date in the covering message, not only in the document.
5. Follow up two days before the quote expires. That deadline is the reason the follow-up is welcome rather than pushy.
6. When it is accepted, convert the quote to an invoice with the same numbers and reference the quote number on it.

Ettex Invoices handles the document side of that loop: line items with quantities, rates, multiple tax rates and discounts, notes and terms fields where validity, exclusions and acceptance instructions belong, sequential auto-numbering with your own prefix, your logo and colours on every document, a client book so entity names and addresses stay identical between the quote and the invoice that follows, statuses from draft to sent to paid, duplication so a quote becomes the invoice without retyping, and export as print-ready PDF or as CSV and XLS for the books. When a quote needs a signature to count as accepted, Ettex Sign turns it into a signature request with reminders and an audit trail.

Mistakes that cost the job

• No expiry date, which leaves your pricing exposed indefinitely.
• A single line reading "design work — 4,000". Specific lines are what make a price feel reasonable.
• Tax treatment left implicit, then argued about at invoice time.
• Sending a quote that does not say how to accept it, so the client has to invent the next step.
• Different numbering between the quote and the invoice, so nobody can match the two later.

A quotation format that converts is boringly complete: one price, a defined scope, an expiry date and a way to say yes. The rest is presentation.