This post explains the different features of estimates, reservations and shipments and how they interrelate.

Estimates

Estimates are used to provide a quote to your customer for material rental as well as unit prices (consumables and services). They are associated with a specific customer but not with a job site and do not affect your inventory balances. An estimated return date is required in order to calculate the anticipated costs to your customer.

An estimate can be converted into a reservation or directly into a shipment.

 

As you can see above, you can attach documents or photos just as you can with reservations and shipments.

You can also track the status of an estimate:

 

Here’s what a sample estimate looks like:

Reservations

An estimate can be converted into a reservation or you can create a new reservation from scratch. A reservation requires that you specify a job site and reserves materials so they are not available to be shipped to another job site. A rent stop date is not required.

Shipments

Estimates and reservations can both be converted into shipments. Reservations appear on the Shipping tab and are turned into shipments by clicking on the Send Selected Shipment button.

Alternatively, you can create a new shipment by clicking on the pallet of boxes to ship items to a location.

There are three types of shipments:

• Deliveries – moves equipment from your branch office or laydown yard to a job site
• Returns - moves equipment from a job site back to your branch office or laydown yard 
• Transfers - moves equipment from job site to job site, or branch to branch

Once a shipment has been entered your inventory is automatically updated so you always know your available balances at each location.

You can customize reports to display the way you’d like to view them. Because this is done on the Reports tab of Global Options, which affects all users, your employees will be able to produce consistent reports.

All reports in Quantify contain fairly consistent data and formatting, such as what is displayed in the header and footer. Other reports, such as invoices and shipments, contain items specific to them, such as a signature block for approval by your customer.

 

Color for Shipment Header Sometimes it’s handy to be able to identify the type of shipment (delivery, return, or transfer) in a stack of paperwork. To assist with this you can change the color on the shipment header by selecting the color in the dropdown list.

Logo to use on Reports

Your company brand is important so your logo can be displayed on most reports.  To include your logo, click on the Add button and select a .png file. This file is now stored in the database and is available to all users, whether working remotely or not.

Invoice

Invoice items are grouped in a two sections to make it easier to differentiate the costs: Rental and Non-Rental Items. The ‘label for additional charges’ and ‘label for rental items’ control the text heading in these sections and are highlighted below.

The 'remit to' and company name that appear on the invoice are also controllable and shown below. Note that the address under the company name comes from the billable address of the parent branch office.

All Reports

The options within ‘All reports’ cover the visibility and display of items at the end of the report and bottom of the page. First is the approval section; shipments, estimates, and invoices include a few lines for a signature. If the checkbox for showing the signature section is checked, then these lines will be shown as below.

The text for the footer isn't required and, if entered, will display in the report centered at the bottom. Additionally, if you would like to include the date and time that the report was print previewed, check the ‘Show date/time created’ checkbox. All three of these options are highlighted below.