From sales quote to project

The customer accepts the quote, and now the project must be created. The quote has lines, prices and agreements that the project also needs. In BC you often build the same thing twice: first in the sales quote and then in the project's planning lines. The article shows what standard gives, and a routine that reduces the double work. Here is a routine without double work. We also show what to check in your own setup.

What the project needs

A project must have at least one task, and the planning lines say what is to be used and what is to be invoiced. Microsoft Learn writes that the division makes it possible to have more precise detail in budgeting, quoting and recording. That suggests the planning lines are also intended as a basis for quotes.

Planning lines can be the quote

A planning line has a line type. Budget is used for expected consumption and cannot be invoiced. Billable is used for expected invoicing, typically with a fixed price. Both Budget and Billable give the same figures in both places. If the quote to the customer is to be tied to the project, you can create the quote as billable lines on the project.

From the planning lines you can create a sales invoice with Create Sales Invoice and specify the quantity to be transferred to the invoice. You can also invoice in part.

What we have not been able to confirm

We have not found a standard feature that links a sales quote or a sales order to the project and builds planning lines from it. Learn also mentions that the Get Project Planning Lines action does not exist on sales orders or sales quotes.

Check for yourselves whether the sales quote lines in your BC have fields for project no. and project task no., and what they do on posting.

A routine that works

Create the project when the quote is sent or accepted, and write the quote number in a reference on the project.
Use Copy Project if you have standard projects that resemble each other.
Put the quote's lines in as billable planning lines, so that invoicing follows the quote.
Leave the quote in the sales module as documentation, but invoice from the project.
Agree who may change the planning lines after acceptance.

Watch out for double invoicing

If you both post a sales order and invoice the project, you risk invoicing the same work twice. Choose one route for invoicing per project, and write it in the project description.

Also write a short procedure for what happens if the customer changes the order after acceptance. If the change must go into both the quote and the project's planning lines, agree who updates both places and how it is documented. Without a fixed procedure, the quote and the project will show two different versions of the agreement after a few weeks.

What you lose by waiting

The later the project is created, the more information has to be recreated from emails and documents. The quote's assumptions, such as hours, materials and prices, are often documented only in the quote. If the planning lines do not reflect them, the project manager and sales may disagree about what the customer ordered. Use the quote's lines as the source, and have one person check that the project's planning lines match the quote before the work starts.

Example

A quote consists of three lines: consultant hours, an item and a travel expense. On the project, one task and three planning lines of the type Billable are created with the same quantities and prices. When the work is done, consumption is posted in the project journal, and the invoice is created from the planning lines. The quote in the sales module is still the documentation of the agreement, but the project controls what is invoiced.

The idea on our list

The idea of linking sales quotes and orders to the project module has 197 votes at Microsoft. At Addverk we collect ideas for small apps that could close gaps like this. They are ideas we are considering, not something you can download or buy today. The list of 30 ideas is on the Coming up page, and you can see which of them look like what you are missing yourselves.