How to write quotations and proposals faster with AI
A slow quotation loses orders. Build one template, a fact sheet and a prompt, and turn rough notes into a clear quotation and covering message in minutes.
On this page
When a customer asks for a quotation, they have usually asked someone else as well. A clear quotation sent the same day often wins against a better price sent three days later. AI cannot decide your price, but it can remove the writing time.
What you need
- Your existing quotation format (a document or spreadsheet)
- An AI assistant
- Thirty minutes, once, to prepare the three things below
Step 1: Fix your template
Take your best past quotation and turn it into a template with clear sections:
- Customer name and date
- What the customer asked for, in one or two lines
- Items, quantities and prices
- What is included and what is not
- Delivery or completion time
- Payment terms and validity of the quotation
- Next step: how to confirm the order
Most quotations that cause disputes later are missing section 4 or 6.
Step 2: Write a fact sheet
In one page, write the things that are true for every quotation: your standard payment terms, delivery areas, warranty or support, taxes, and what you never include. You will paste this into the AI each time, so that it never has to guess.
Do not put confidential prices or supplier costs in the fact sheet. The AI does not need them.
Step 3: Use this prompt
You help a [type of business] in India prepare quotations. Using my fact sheet and my notes below, write: (1) the "scope" section of the quotation in clear points, saying what is included and what is not included; (2) a covering message of under 80 words to send with the quotation on WhatsApp or email. Use simple English. Do not invent any price, date or term: where my notes are missing something, write [TO CONFIRM]. Fact sheet: [paste]. My notes: [paste your rough notes].
The instruction to write [TO CONFIRM] is important. It shows you what is missing instead of hiding it.
Example: from rough notes to a clear scope
A made-up interior contractor, used only to show the method.
Rough notes: "2BHK, modular kitchen + 2 wardrobes, laminate finish, customer wants in 5 weeks, no civil work, electrical by their own person."
What the AI drafts for the scope:
- Included: design, manufacture and installation of one modular kitchen and two wardrobes in laminate finish.
- Not included: civil work, plumbing and electrical work, which the customer will arrange.
- Completion: [TO CONFIRM] weeks from the date of advance payment.
The contractor then adds the prices, confirms the timeline and sends it.
Step 4: Add the numbers yourself
Fill in every price, quantity, tax and total yourself, in your own sheet. Do not ask AI to calculate a quotation total. If you want a second check, ask it to "check that these line totals add up to the grand total" and then verify by hand anything it flags.
Step 5: Send it with a short message, and follow up
Send the quotation with the covering message, and put the follow-up date in your enquiry sheet. A quotation without a follow-up is half the work. See A simple AI-assisted follow-up system.
For longer proposals
For a proposal of several pages, work section by section:
- Ask the AI to list the sections a proposal for this customer needs.
- For each section, give your points and ask for a draft.
- Ask it to find anything unclear or any promise that is too broad.
- Read the whole proposal aloud once before sending.
Mistakes to avoid
- Sending an AI draft with [TO CONFIRM] still in it. Search for the square bracket before you send.
- Copying terms from another business. Your terms must be ones you can keep.
- Pasting the customer's personal details into the AI. Use [customer name] and add it afterwards.
- Long quotations. One or two pages are read. Ten pages are not.
