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Working in Quotes and Contacts

How to use quotes for pre-invoice pricing and contacts for customer and supplier master data in Beam Machine.

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Working in Quotes and Contacts

This page shows you how to prepare commercial work before invoicing by keeping quotes and contacts clean.

Product: Beam Machine
Module: Quotes and Contacts
Role: Sales Admin, Bookkeeper, Accountant, Operations Admin
Difficulty: Beginner
Time: 8 minutes first read, 2-3 minutes for repeat use
Last Updated: 2026-03-10
Version: Current Beam Machine app build in this repo

Before You Start

  • You need access to Quotes and Contacts.
  • You should know whether you are preparing a customer offer or cleaning master data.
  • Have the customer or supplier name, contact details, and pricing context ready.

What are Quotes and Contacts?

Quotes are your pre-invoice commercial documents. Contacts are your customer and supplier master records. On paper, this is the difference between the quote pad and the client register.

In Beam Machine, quotes help you move toward invoicing, and contacts support invoicing, purchasing, and other downstream finance flows.

When do you use this?

Use Quotes when you need to propose pricing before raising an invoice. Use Contacts when the person or business you are working with does not yet exist properly in the system, or their details are outdated.

If contacts are dirty, invoicing and procurement become messy fast.

Where do you find it?

Primary path: Finance -> Quotes and Finance -> Contacts

Important routes:

  • /dashboard/quotes
  • /dashboard/quotes/new
  • /dashboard/quotes/[id]
  • /dashboard/contacts
  • /dashboard/contacts/new
  • /dashboard/contacts/[id]

How to work in Quotes and Contacts

  1. Open Contacts first if you are not sure the customer or supplier exists.
  2. Review whether the record is a customer or supplier.
  3. Create a new contact if the record is missing.
  4. Confirm email, phone, and status before using the contact in another module.

If you need to prepare a commercial offer

  1. Open Quotes.
  2. Review the quote pipeline and current statuses such as draft, sent, accepted, declined, expired, or converted.
  3. Click New Quote.
  4. Create the quote and review its value before sending or converting it later.

If you need to move from quote to billing

  1. Confirm the quote is accepted or otherwise ready to bill.
  2. Move into 02-working-in-invoicing.md to create the financial document.

āœ… Checkpoint: At this point, you should have a clean contact record and a clear quote status before billing starts.

Common Questions & Issues

"The Contacts page is visible, but it feels thin"

Why this happens: The contacts route exists, but the current page still uses a placeholder-style list flow in code rather than a fully mature contact service.

Fix: Use the visible screens honestly, but do not over-promise deep contact-management behavior until it is confirmed in the live environment.

"The quote exists, but it is not yet an invoice"

Why this happens: Quotes are not the same thing as invoices. They are commercial proposals.

Fix: Use the quote to confirm pricing and status, then move to 02-working-in-invoicing.md for billing.

What's Next

Related Pages

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