How to Create a Quote in EDGEBIC and Save It as a Draft

To create a quote in EDGEBIC by User Solutions you open the Quote tab, click the add-quote button to launch the Quote Configuration dialog, fill a handful of fields, and click Save. The quote lands in the grid as a Draft with a preliminary routing-based cost estimate, and nothing on your production schedule moves. This guide covers the pure creation task: getting a clean, valid draft on the board. Pricing, simulation, and conversion each get their own recipe.

For the wider field-by-field walkthrough that also covers simulation and pricing, read how to build and price a quote. Every task here is documented behavior of EDGEBIC, and the full task library lives in the how-to hub.

Before You Start

• The product you are quoting has a Bill of Routing. The quote's later simulation schedules that routing, and a product with no routing cannot be simulated.
• You know the quantity and the customer's own reference or purchase order number.
• A customer record exists (recommended). You can type a free-text reference instead, but a linked record carries through to the order and the reports.

Step 1: Open the Quote Configuration Dialog

Open Schedule from the main navigation, then click the Quote tab. Click ➕ Quote. The Quote Configuration dialog opens with three field groups: Basic Information, Pricing and Quantities, and Important Dates. The Product and Customer dropdowns refresh as the dialog opens, so the lists are current.

Step 2: Fill the Required Fields

Work through the groups. The fields that must be filled to save a valid draft are:

Leave Unit Price: at zero if you want the system to derive it from cost and markup after the first simulation, or type a negotiated price now. Selecting a customer in Customer Id: pre-fills the contact person, email, and phone from the customer record when those are set.

The dialog holds more than the six required fields. The optional ones shape pricing and scheduling later:

Each optional field has a later recipe, moving the quote off Draft included, so a first draft does not need any of them. The Cost Analysis panel in the dialog fills with a routing-based estimate as you pick a product and set a quantity, giving a quick sanity check before you ever simulate.

Adding a new customer without leaving the dialog

If the customer is not yet in the system, click the + button beside the Customer Id: field. A customer form opens on top of the quote. Fill in the name and contact details, save, and control returns to the quote with the new customer already selected and its contact fields pre-filled. You finish the quote in one pass. The customer name is required (two to two hundred characters), and an email, if given, must be a valid address.

Step 3: Set a Quote Number

Leave the quote number blank to accept an auto-generated value such as Q0011, or type your own external reference such as QUO-2026-011. Custom numbers allow letters, digits, dashes, and underscores, run two to fifty characters, and must be unique across all quotes.

Step 4: Save

Click Save. The quote appears in the grid with Status Draft and a preliminary routing-based cost estimate in the hours and cost columns.

What Changes When You Save

Saving writes one quote row and stamps the preliminary estimate fields. It does not touch the production schedule, the work-center load, or any existing job. The estimate you see is line-item math from the routing (setup plus per-unit hours times quantity, priced at the step or work-center rates, plus material). It assumes no capacity constraint. Nothing reaches the calendar until you convert the quote to an order and run a schedule.

How to Check It Worked

Find your new row in the grid. Confirm the Status column reads Draft and the quote number matches what you typed or the auto-generated Q####. The cost and hours columns hold the preliminary estimate. To narrow the list while you verify, use the Draft status filter radio at the top of the grid.

Worked Example: A Clean Draft for Acme

Acme Industries wants a price on 200 units of Widget-A. You open the Quote tab, click ➕ Quote, and in the Quote Configuration dialog set Product (BOR): to Widget-A, Customer Id: to Acme Industries, Customer Reference: to ACME-PO-4471, and Quantity: to 200. You leave Unit Price: at zero so the system can derive it from cost after simulation, and you leave Markup % at its 25% default. Quote Date: is today, Expiry Date: defaults thirty days out, and Target Start Date: is a week from now.

You type a readable quote number, QUO-2026-011, instead of accepting the auto-generated Q0011, because the customer will see it. You click Save. The row appears with Status Draft. The Cost Analysis panel already shows a routing-based estimate from Widget-A's steps, but no dates yet, because you have not simulated. That is the correct state of a clean draft: enough data to save and simulate, nothing promised.

Common Mistakes and Gotchas

• A special character in the quote number is rejected. The allowed set is letters, digits, dashes, and underscores. Slashes, dots, parentheses, spaces, and the at sign all fail. Replace a slash in a date-stamped reference with a dash.
• A duplicate quote number blocks the save. Numbers must be unique. If the save is rejected with an "already exists" message, pick a different number.
• A zero unit price only warns, it does not block. The validator flags it so you verify the price is intentional, but the quote still saves. A quantity above ten thousand also warns rather than blocks.
• The preliminary estimate is not the promise. The hours and cost on a never-simulated quote ignore shop load. Do not quote a date from them. Run the delivery-date simulation before you commit to a customer.

Once the draft exists, the next step is almost always the simulation, which turns the routing math into a capacity-aware start date, end date, and real cost.