Introduction
A request for proposal is a customer asking what a rental would cost before any booking exists: a van for three months, a car subscription, a company fleet for the summer. Requests land on the screen headed Request for Proposal, a list with a search box above each column and a New button, whether they came in from your website or you typed them in after a phone call. Opening one shows the screen headed Request for proposal: the request details at the top, the customer's details below, and Convert to quote, Save and Cancel at the bottom.
You would be here because:
- A request for a three-month van hire came in overnight from the website.
- A company phones asking for a price on a car subscription.
- The Request for proposals tile on your daily overview shows requests waiting.
- You are tidying up requests you have already answered.
Words this screen uses
| The screen says | What it means |
|---|---|
| Asset | The vehicle the customer asked for, in their own words. It cannot be edited |
| Asset group | The vehicle class you choose to quote |
| Proposal type | Rental, Shortlease (subscription) or Lease |
| Pending / Processed / Archived | The request's Status, which only you change |
Every way a request is handled
| Route | What you get | Checks it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Your website's request form | A request with the customer's own wording, and the class and branch filled in when they match yours | The form insists on a vehicle, an email, a customer type, a proposal type and dates |
| New on the list | An empty request to fill in | None: Save stores whatever is there |
| Convert to quote on a request | A quote booking, and sometimes a new customer | Branch, class, proposal type and length, below |
Use this page to record a request and turn it into a quote; sending that quote is covered in Send a quote and follow it up.
How to use
Configuration
Requests for proposal have no settings of their own.
Before you start: New and Convert to quote need a full staff account or a company administrator. A restricted staff account can open requests but not create or convert them.
Using the request screen
From the main menu open Bookings, then click the Requests for proposal tile. You can also click Request for proposals on your daily overview; that tile starts on, and its switch is called RFP, as described in Change which tiles your dashboard shows.
- Press New for a phoned-in request, or click the open icon at the end of a row.
- Leave Status at Pending for now, and choose the Proposal type.
- Under Asset, read what the customer asked for, then pick the class in Asset group.
- Pick the branch in the second Location box. The screen shows Location twice; the first is what the customer typed and cannot be changed.
- Fill in From date and To date. Term in months, Estimated mileage per year and Additional information are for your own notes.
- Fill in the customer details, and always Customer email: it is how the app finds the customer you already have.
- Press Save to keep the request for later, or Convert to quote to make the quote now. The quote booking opens on top of the request.
- Press Back on the booking to return to the request, set Status to Processed, and press Save.
Key details
What Convert to quote checks. The first three are all reported at once, as Required under the box concerned:
| Condition | What to check |
|---|---|
| A branch is chosen | The second Location box |
| A class is chosen | Asset group |
| The type can be converted | Proposal type is Rental or Shortlease (subscription). Lease is always refused |
| A subscription is long enough | Shortlease (subscription) needs more than 29 days, or you see Shortlease bookings need to be at least 30 days. |
A refused conversion saves nothing. A successful one also saves your edits to the request.
What the quote looks like. A booking at Quote, picked up and returned at the branch you chose, on the request's dates, with no vehicle attached yet. It is priced the way a website booking is, from the customer's price list. Any request longer than 29 days becomes a lease, whatever the proposal type: a Rental request from 1 March to 15 April is 45 days, so its contract return is set to 31 March and the rest is billed in later periods. The same request from 1 to 10 March stays an ordinary quote.
Which customer the quote goes to. The app looks for one of your customers with the same email as Customer email. If it finds one, that customer is used exactly as they are, and the names typed on the request are ignored. If it finds none, or the email box is empty, it creates a new customer from the first name, last name, phone and company name. A company name makes it a business customer. The email address itself is not copied onto the new customer.
What nothing uses. Customer type, Term in months, Estimated mileage per year, Additional information, and the customer's own wording under Asset and the first Location, are stored and shown but play no part in the quote.
Status is yours to keep. Converting does not change it, and nothing links the request to the quote it made. The daily overview tile counts every Pending request in your company. The list shows all three statuses; filter on Status to hide the handled ones.
What to do next: send the quote, as described in Send a quote and follow it up. If the app created a new customer, add their email address first, as described in Create a customer record.
Q&A
I pressed Convert to quote twice and now have two quotes. Nothing stops a second conversion. Deny the extra quote as described in Send a quote and follow it up, and set the request's Status to Processed straight after converting next time. If the request had no email, the second press also made a second customer.
Why can't the quote email reach a customer created from a request? The new customer has no email address. Open them from Customers, fill in Email, and press Save.
Convert shows Required under Proposal type, but Lease is selected. Lease requests cannot be converted. Choose Shortlease (subscription) for a hire of 30 days or more, or Rental, and convert again.
Why did a Rental request become a lease? It is longer than 29 days. Every request that long becomes one.
The quote has a different customer name from the one on the request. A customer with that email already existed, and the app used them unchanged. Check the customer on the booking before you send the quote.
The request is still on the daily overview tile after I converted it. Its Status is still Pending. Open it, set Status to Processed or Archived, and press Save.
I deleted a request by mistake. The icon at the end of a row deletes at once, without asking, and it cannot be brought back. Set Status to Archived instead when you only want a request out of the way.
Why can't I see New or Convert to quote? Your account is a restricted staff account. Ask a colleague with a full staff account, or your company administrator.
Why is my branch missing from the second Location box? It only lists the branches you are allowed to work in, as described in Add an employee and set their permissions.
Why is the price on the quote different from the counter price? Converted requests are priced as website bookings, which can include online-only deals; see Find out how a price was worked out.
Related pages: Send a quote and follow it up for everything after conversion, Create a customer record for completing a customer the request created, and Set up a lease for long hires.