Creating a Vendor Quote

Vendor quotes give you an easy way to include a third party’s services with markup in your projects.

You can manage vendor quotes by navigating to the Vendor Quotes section within your project.

To create a Vendor Quote, first press Add Vendor Quote. Your account can rename this item (for example, to “Subcontractor Quote”), and the screens use your account’s name for it wherever this article says Vendor Quote.

On this screen: The list page is a card titled “Vendor Quotes” (your account’s name for the item, plus “s”). The card header holds a green Add Vendor Quote button and, when your account has the Vendor Quotes import feature turned on, an Import Quote button beside it. Both buttons appear with Create or Manage access to vendor quotes while the project is in Building status. The table has columns for Vendor, Description, One Time Cost, Recurring Cost, Markup (or Margin, depending on your account’s calculation method), One Time Revenue, and Recurring Revenue, with page-size and paging controls underneath. A pencil icon next to each vendor name opens that quote. Descriptions longer than 20 characters are cut short, and an eye icon opens the full text in a side panel. While a quote is still being read from an uploaded document, the Description column shows its processing status instead, such as “Quote processed successfully, awaiting review”. With no quotes, the table shows “Add quotes to get started”.

Each row has a checkbox. Checking one or more rows shows an “N Selected” pill above the table with a Delete action, and a confirmation window lists the quotes and warns that the action cannot be undone. Checkboxes appear with Create or Manage access to vendor quotes while the project is in Building status. Under the table, right-aligned, a Subtotal: shows the combined revenue of the quotes on the current page of the table, in the project’s currency.

Next, you can provide some basic information about the vendor you received a quote from.

On this screen: The page is titled “Add Vendor Quote” and has Cancel, Save and Add Another, and Save buttons in the header. The form opens with a “Vendor / Quote Info” section: a required ”* Vendor Name” search field (placeholder “Search and select vendor name”) with an Add Vendor button beside it if you have permission to create vendors, a “Description” text area (placeholder “Enter a high-level description of the work being performed”), and a required ”* Line of Business” dropdown (placeholder “If applicable, assign to a Line of Business”). A “Pricing Details” section follows with a “Billing Method” dropdown (Time and Materials or Fixed Fee) and an “Includes Recurring Costs” dropdown (No, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly). Below those are “One Time Cost”, “Markup” (labeled “Target Margin” when your account calculates by margin), and “One Time Revenue” fields. Choosing a recurring frequency adds a second row for the recurring cost, markup or margin, and revenue, labeled with the frequency, such as “Monthly Cost” and “Monthly Revenue”.

Save creates the quote and opens its edit page. Save and Add Another creates it, clears the form, and shows “Vendor Quote created successfully!” so you can enter the next one. Cancel returns to the list without saving.

Quote Pricing and Recurring Costs

You enter a quote’s pricing in the Pricing Details section of the Quote Details tab: One Time Cost, Markup (or Target Margin), and One Time Revenue.

Use the Includes Recurring Costs dropdown to say whether the quote has recurring fees. The options are No, Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly. If you leave it at No, the recurring fields do not appear. If you pick a frequency, a second row appears for the recurring cost, markup or margin, and revenue, labeled with that frequency, such as “Monthly Cost”. The same frequency is the recurring option in the Frequency column on the Service Pricing tab.

On this screen: When a quote is using service pricing, an orange note reading “Please Note: Service Pricing is in use” appears under the “Pricing Details” heading, and the cost, markup or margin, and revenue fields are read-only. The same fields are also read-only when you only have View access or the project is no longer in Building status.

Price Override Tracking

Revenue values you enter manually are treated as price overrides and tracked independently from margin calculations. This eliminates the rounding issues that can occur when trying to match a specific revenue amount, and lets you enter just Cost and Revenue without specifying a Target Margin. The application adapts to your preferred approach.

On this screen: The vendor quote detail view shows editable cost and revenue fields. Revenue values entered manually are flagged as price overrides and tracked independently. The form adapts based on whether you enter Cost + Margin or Cost + Revenue directly.

Service-Level Pricing

The Service Pricing tab is always available on every vendor quote. You can add and price services directly on the quote, entering Cost, Margin, or Revenue at the service level with the same automatic calculations as quote-level pricing.

When you price individual services, the Quote Details tab automatically calculates and displays the rolled-up costs and revenue for the quote. The quote-level cost and revenue fields become locked, as their values are now determined by the sum of service-level pricing.

This approach is well-suited for staff augmentation scenarios or subcontractor quotes where you want to price each line independently before rolling up to a quote total.

On this screen: The “Service Pricing” tab on a vendor quote shows a table of individual services. See “Add Services to the Vendor Quote” below for its columns. The tab is available on every vendor quote.

Revenue Calculation: Margin vs. Markup

Vendor quotes support two methods for calculating revenue from cost:

• Margin-based: The percentage you enter represents profit as a share of the final revenue. For example, a 20% margin on a $100 cost results in $125 revenue (because $25 profit is 20% of $125). The formula is: Revenue = Cost / (1 - Margin%).
• Markup-based: The percentage you enter is applied directly on top of cost. For example, a 20% markup on a $100 cost results in $120 revenue. The formula is: Revenue = Cost x (1 + Markup%).

Which method your account uses is an account-wide setting rather than a per-quote choice. An admin changes it under Settings > Account Preferences > Features; there is no calculation-method selector on the quote itself. The method is recorded on each quote when the quote is created, so changing the account setting affects new quotes and leaves existing ones on the method they were created with. The same method applies to both one-time and recurring pricing on a quote.

This setting controls how the platform interprets the percentage value you enter. When you enter Cost and a percentage, the Revenue field updates automatically based on the selected calculation method. You can also override revenue directly by entering a specific amount — the platform tracks manual overrides separately.

Billing Method: Time & Materials vs. Fixed Fee

Each vendor quote can be set to one of two billing methods:

• Time & Materials (T&M): Costs are calculated based on hours worked and rates. The pricing model applies the margin or markup ratio to derive revenue from actual time and cost.
• Fixed Fee: The total price is a set amount regardless of how many hours are spent. This is common for subcontractor engagements with a defined deliverable and flat cost.

The billing method is set on the quote overview and affects how the pricing fields are interpreted and displayed.

Add Services to the Vendor Quote

Via the User Interface

You can add services to your vendor quote from its edit page. Open the quote, then use the Vendor Description of Services tab. You can align these services to the phases in your account, give them a name, and define Service Description and Language Field language for them.

On this screen: The edit page is titled “Edit” followed by the vendor name, with Cancel and Save buttons in the header. Four tabs sit below: “Quote Details”, “Vendor Description of Services”, “Our Description of Services”, and “Service Pricing”. On the Vendor Description of Services tab, a “Show / edit content for:” dropdown (starting at “Service Description”) switches between your account’s language fields. Import Services and Add Services buttons sit on the right. The table has a Phase dropdown, a Service Name field, and a content column headed with the selected language field. A menu on each row offers Add Subservice and Delete, and subservices appear under a “Subservices” heading beneath their service.

You can also add pricing information on the Service Pricing tab.

On this screen: The Service Pricing tab shows the same Phase and Service Name columns, followed by Hours, Hourly Cost, Target Margin (or Markup, depending on your account’s calculation method), Hourly Price, and Frequency. Changing the margin or markup updates the Hourly Price, and changing the Hourly Price updates the margin or markup. The Frequency dropdown offers One Time, plus the recurring frequency chosen on the quote if there is one. Fields are disabled for services assigned to a vendor resource, and a note below the table says so.

Click Save in the page header to keep your changes. Save stays dimmed until you change something. If you switch tabs with unsaved changes, a window titled “You have unsaved changes” offers Cancel, Don’t Save, and Save. Cancel in the page header returns you to the list of quotes without asking.

Via File Import

You can also import services to the Vendor Quote from a spreadsheet, following most of the same rules for importing your own services to the platform.

On this screen: Import Services opens a window titled “Import Quoted Services” with an upload field labeled ”* Upload Services from Quote (CSV or Excel)”. After uploading, the platform shows a column mapping step where you match spreadsheet columns to the required fields. A Process Import button finalizes the import.

The following columns can be imported, with required columns noted with an *:

• Phase: The Phase the service is aligned to in your Project.
• Service*: The name of the Service as it will be presented in the Scope of Work.
• Subservice: Subservices that belong to the service. Following the convention from our regular spreadsheet importing method, for every subservice, repeat all of the initial columns (Phase and Service) to indicate that a particular subservice belongs to a service.
• Quantity*: The quantity of the service in your Project.
• Service Description: The description of the Service that will flow into the Vendor Description of Services tab.
• Language Field Columns: For every Language field configured in your account, you will find a column available for import.

After you’ve mapped the columns, click the Process Import button. You will be shown a screen of successfully imported services.

Setup “Our Description”

To finish, go to the Our Description of Services tab and make any changes to how the language will appear in your Project. Use the Show / edit content for: dropdown to pick a language field, then edit the content for each service.

On this screen: The Our Description of Services tab uses the same layout as the Vendor Description of Services tab: a “Show / edit content for:” dropdown, Import Services and Add Services buttons, and a table with Phase, Service Name, and an editable content column headed with the selected language field. Subservices appear under a “Subservices” heading beneath their service.

Click Save in the page header to keep your changes. To change a service name or add or change subservices, you can do it on either description tab.

Viewing the Services in the List of Professional Services

You can now navigate to the main Professional Services section of the platform to sequence the services with your other services in the Project. The language you defined under Our Description will become the Service Description and Language Field language for your services in your Project. The resource completing the work will be displayed as the Vendor noted in the Vendor Quote.

Permissions

The Vendor Quotes (projects.vendor_quotes) permission under Settings > Roles controls access:

• View: See vendor quotes on a project but cannot add or edit them.
• Create: Add new vendor quotes to a project.
• Manage: Full access — add, edit, and delete vendor quotes.