From quote request to print-ready file

The situation

Requests arrived by email, phone and sometimes on a slip of paper. Every quote meant the same back and forth: which format, which paper, how many copies, in how many colours, and by when.

The calculation lived in an extensive spreadsheet that one person genuinely understood. Paper prices, quantity breaks, surcharges for heavy ink, transport — all correct, but not transferable and not explainable to a customer.

And then there was the question that came in most often and paid least: where is my order?

Approach

We started with the spreadsheet, not the screen. Paper types, price breaks, plate costs and surcharges were lifted out of Excel into a rates file the office team manages themselves — no programmer required.

On top of that came a configurator per product type: envelopes, cards, folders, flyers. The customer picks format, paper, quantity and number of colours, and watches the price move as they fill it in, including what changes at a larger run.

A request becomes a quote with versions. If the customer asks for a change, a new version appears and the previous one is kept, along with who approved what and when. Files are uploaded with the job and checked before they go into production.

The last part was the hardest: production status. That lives in their existing CRM, where orders are already scanned. Rather than have it typed in twice, the portal reads the status reports from that CRM automatically and matches them to the right sub-order.

The outcome

A request now arrives complete: with format, paper, quantity, files and delivery date. What used to take three emails happens in one go.

The price is no longer one person's secret. It is built up from rates the office team manages themselves, and the customer sees how it comes together.

And the call about where the order is has all but stopped: customers follow it themselves. After delivery the portal was extended with an extra module, at the customer's own request.