Quoting a made part: by hand, from a drawing or an email, and reading the price
The three ways to quote a made part (Part costing by hand, the AI Assistant from a request or drawing, or an emailed request turned into a draft quote), what each figure in the price means, and how to check your rates against what the floor actually takes.
Where it is
- Manufacturing → Quoting rates — Rate cards, cut speeds, finishes, settings, quoted against actual
- Inbox — Make a draft quote from a customer’s email
- Quotes — Part costing, AI Assistant and Customer’s parts on a quote
Before the first quote
- Rate cards: a sell rate an hour, default setup minutes and a minimum for each work centre (Manufacturing → Quoting rates).
- Cut speeds: for each cutter, the feed and pierce time per material and thickness. Paste a feed chart under the table takes rows straight from a spreadsheet: work centre, material, thickness, feed, pierce.
- Finishes you offer, and the quote settings: margin, sheet utilisation, scrap, quantity breaks and rounding.
- Fill in Material on your sheet and plate products (Inventory → Products → Edit), so a part can be cut from them.
Three ways to quote a part
- By hand: 📏 Part costing on the quote. Pick the sheet, type or read the blank (Read a drawing for a DXF), the cut length and pierces, the steps, a finish and any hardware.
- From a request or drawings: ✨ AI Assistant, when your business quotes made parts. Describe it and add the drawings; each part comes back as a card to check and adjust.
- From an email: in the Inbox, on a customer’s email, 📐 Make a draft quote starts a quote for them with the email’s words and opens the AI Assistant with them filled in. Add the drawings attached to the email from your mailbox: they aren’t copied across.
Reading the price
Each quantity break is worked out the same way:
- Material: the blank’s area, divided by your sheet utilisation and increased by scrap, at the sheet’s cost per square metre (only shown to someone who can see costs).
- Each step (laser, brake, weld…): its minutes for the quantity, plus its setup once, at the centre’s sell rate; never less than the centre’s minimum (marked *). A step whose time is a judgement is marked ~.
- Finish: per m², kg or each at its rate, never less than its minimum.
- Hardware: at cost.
- The price: material and hardware carry your margin; time and finishes are already prices. It is never less than your minimum charge, and each unit price is rounded up.
When something can’t be priced (a thickness the cutter has no speed for, a sheet with no cost, a step on a centre with no rate card) it is listed in amber and the break shows no price: fix it, and the price fills in.
Are the rates right? Quoted against actual
Once library parts have been made and their steps clocked on the floor, Quoted against actual at the bottom of Quoting rates shows, for each work centre, the minutes it was quoted against the minutes it took. A centre that runs well over (it says by how much) is under-priced: raise its sell rate or setup minutes, or slow its cut speeds. One well under may be pricing you out of work.