Quotation

Because a price has to be offered before it can be agreed, and both parties need a record of exactly what was on the table and until when.

The quotation is where margin is actually decided. By the time an order exists the price is fixed; every negotiation, discount and concession happened here. That makes quote data the most under-used dataset in most businesses — win rate by discount level, by salesperson, by product, tells you what your pricing is really worth, and almost nobody looks.

• A quotation has an expiry. An offer with no validity period is a price the seller cannot withdraw.
• It commits nothing — no stock, no capacity, no revenue — until it is accepted and becomes an order.
• The version a customer accepted must remain retrievable. Overwriting a quotation destroys the evidence of what was actually offered.

Quotes get produced outside the system — in a spreadsheet, in an email — because it is faster. Then nothing links what was offered to what was sold, win/loss analysis is impossible, and the first dispute about a price turns on whoever kept the better email thread.

• Quotes with volume-tiered pricing, where accepting a lower quantity invalidates the rate quoted.
• Long-validity quotes in a volatile input market, where honouring the price destroys the margin.
• Partial acceptance — the customer wants three of five lines, which is a new offer rather than a partial one.
• Quotes issued in a currency that has moved by acceptance, where the exchange risk sat with the seller for the whole validity window.