Quoting

From the customer's email to the quote in your ERP, on one screen.

A quoting app your estimators work in all day. Requests land already read. Every part carries its own history. Supplier prices get requested and tracked. The finished quote goes out, gets filed and lands in your ERP without anyone typing it twice. Your estimator still sets the price. Everything wrapped around the price is what it takes over.

The dashboard. Every open quote, what's due, what went out, and what you've won, before anyone asks.

The whole quote, not one step of it

A quote is ten small jobs wrapped around one judgment call.

The judgment is the price, and that stays with your estimator. The ten jobs around it are where the day goes. Here's each one without a tool like this, and where it lives in the app.

The jobWithout itIn the app
A request comes inSomeone opens the email, the drawings and the spreadsheet, and works out who it's from and what they wantAlready read and waiting in the Inbox, customer matched AI reads
Starting the quotePart numbers, revisions and quantities typed into a quote by handOne click turns the request into a quote with every part on it
The filesFolders made by hand, drawings dragged in one at a timeFolders made for you, each drawing and model paired with its part
Last timeDigging through old quotes and job folders, or asking whoever remembersEvery past quote for that part, and how long the last job really ran, sitting beside the price
Material and outside workSupplier emails written from scratch, replies chased through somebody's inboxRequests drafted and grouped by supplier, and the quote shows who you're still waiting on AI reads the drawings
The priceA spreadsheet per quote, with formulas that drift from one estimator to the nextYour rates, your operations, your markup, the same math on every quantity
Checking itHoping nobody quoted a finish or heat treat that nothing charges forChecked before it's marked ready, and again before it's sent
Sending itA PDF and an email built by handA clean PDF and email in one click, replies routed to the salesperson
The ERPThe quote and its parts typed into the ERP a second timeThe quote and its parts go into your ERP with their prices
Following upA notepad, or nobodyViews for due this week, sent and waiting, won and lost

The screens

What your estimators actually work in.

The real screens, with every name and number invented. Anything a person can change sits in a filled box. Anything the app worked out is plain text. You can tell at a glance which is which.

01 · Inbox
AI reads

Requests arrive already read

Every few minutes it checks your quotes inbox. The email, the PDF drawings, a spreadsheet, even a table pasted in as a picture: all of it gets read into parts, revisions, quantities, material and finish, with the customer's RFQ number and when they want it back.

Anything that doesn't look like a quote request is marked and left for a person to decide. It never gets filed away on the AI's say-so.

02 · Triage
A person confirmsPlain software

A glance, a fix, one click

Your estimator sees what was read, fixes anything that's off, strikes what the customer isn't asking for, and makes the quote. The customer is matched from the sender's address. Parts you've quoted before are flagged right there, with how many times.

03 · The quote
Plain software

Where it stands, without asking anyone

The quote opens with every part on it and its folders already made in your shared drive. The strip across the top shows where the work is, worked out from the quote itself, so nobody has to remember to update a status.

Two estimators can't overwrite each other. Whoever's editing holds the quote until they're done, and everyone else can still read it.

04 · Each part
The estimator pricesPlain software

The price, with last time right beside it

Each part has four tabs: Details, Costing, Files and History. On Costing, your estimator sets the times and the app does the math from your rates, outside processing with the supplier's minimum, and your markup, for every quantity at once.

Beside it: every past quote for that part number and what it won or lost at, and how long the last job actually took on each machine, pulled from your ERP. When the mill ran long last time, it's right there before the new price goes out.

05 · Supplier requests
AI reads the drawingsPlain software

Material and outside work, requested and tracked

One button reads every drawing for material, finish, heat treat and finished size. Where there's a 3D model, the app measures the model instead, because a model gives the exact size. Then it works out the stock to order and groups the parts by supplier.

Each request opens as a draft in your email with your quote number on it, so the reply is easy to match. The quote shows which suppliers have answered and which you're still waiting on.

06 · Check, send, done
Plain software

Nothing goes out half-finished

Before a part is marked ready, it's checked: a finish that prints on the quote with nothing charging for it, a quantity with no price, a material that was only a close match. Your estimator can still go ahead, and the override is recorded.

Send builds a clean PDF, emails it from your quotes mailbox with replies going to the salesperson, files it with the customer's email and drawings, and puts the quote and its parts into your ERP with their prices. Then the quote locks, so a price the customer is holding can't change by accident. A change becomes a revision.

07 · Follow-up
Plain software

Nothing falls through after it's sent

The quote list is sorted into the questions you actually ask: what's due this week, what's been sent, what you've won. If a customer's mail server bounces a quote, you're told it never arrived instead of it quietly showing as sent. And if requests ever stop reaching the app, an email says so in plain words, because an empty inbox looks exactly like a quiet morning.

Where the AI is, and where it isn't

AI reads the paperwork. Your estimator sets the price.

AI
  • Reading each request: the email, the PDF drawings, spreadsheets, and tables pasted in as pictures
  • Telling the customer's paperwork apart from the prints
  • Reading material, finish, heat treat and size off each drawing for the supplier requests
Plain software, and your people
  • Matching the customer and flagging parts you've quoted before
  • Measuring 3D models, sizing stock, and drafting and tracking supplier requests
  • Every cost and price from your own rates, every check, the PDF, the email, the filing and the ERP entry
  • The price itself, which stays your estimator's call

Your estimator is the best judge of how long a part takes to make. The app's job is the clerical work around that judgment, so every request gets their attention instead of their typing.

It had to earn it

Almost every tool I've built broke the first time it met real work. This one did too.

On a lot of drawings, how smooth a machined surface has to be is just a number inside a symbol: 64, 125, 32. The reader kept putting that number in the Finish box, which is meant for a coating you buy from an outside vendor, like plating or anodize. Whatever sits in that box prints on the customer's quote.

64 NICKEL PLATE→NICKEL PLATE Printed on the drawing: 64 NICKEL PLATE. The 64 is the machined surface. The plating is what you buy.

The first fix only quieted the warning about it, and the number kept coming through. So now the reader is told what that box is for, and plain software strips the roughness number out after every read, whatever the AI returns. Plating specs with real numbers in them, like a 500 hour salt spray, come through untouched.

Built once, adapted to yours

This is the baseline. Yours quotes the way you do.

Everything above is the tool as it runs today. The parts that do the hard work stay the same. The parts that decide how a price gets built get fitted to your kind of work.

What stays
  • Requests read before anyone opens them
  • One screen per quote, with every part's history beside the price
  • Supplier requests drafted and tracked
  • The checks, the send, the filing and the ERP entry
What gets adapted
  • How you build a price: your operations, your rates, your markup
  • Your materials, suppliers and outside processes
  • Your quote layout and your terms
  • Your ERP
Finishing

Priced by surface area, rack or lot, with the spec and thickness on every line.

Dies and tooling

Engineering and build hours by stage, with tryout and the materials behind them.

Assemblies

A bill of materials rolled up, with purchased parts, subassemblies and labor.

How it gets set up

Your rates, your operations, your quote.

  1. Connect it to your quotes inbox, your ERP and your shared drive.

    It works on top of the systems you already run. Nothing gets replaced.

  2. Load how you quote.

    Your rates, operations and outside vendors, your materials and suppliers, your markup, your quote layout and your terms. Your past quotes and job history come with it.

  3. Read your real requests first.

    It reads every request into its own inbox while your people keep quoting the usual way, so you can check what it reads before anyone depends on it.

  4. Quote from it.

    Every request gets worked from the same screens, and everything the AI read still goes past a person before it becomes a quote.

Quoted up front, no hourly billing. I host it and keep it running, and a care plan covers fixes and changes as the way you quote changes. The code is yours, and I'll transfer it to you at any time.

Linked Operations · AI implementation for manufacturers

If your estimators spend more time typing than pricing, let's talk.

Tell me how a request becomes a quote today, from the email to the ERP. I'll tell you straight whether a tool like this fits, whether something lighter would do, or whether it isn't worth it for you.

Email Jason →

Jason Markham

Nearly 25 years in manufacturing, including a decade running a machine shop. I build these tools myself, and they run every day.

I help manufacturers and distributors implement AI, automate workflows, and reduce errors with small, focused software builds that take over the back office work: the data, the paperwork, the busywork between the systems they already run.

[email protected]