How to turn a ProKitchen file into a customer quote
Export the XML report from ProKitchen, apply your cost and your margin to every line, and send the customer a quote she can accept and pay a deposit on. Retyped by hand that takes an afternoon. Read straight from the file it takes minutes.
The short answer
ProKitchen already knows every cabinet in the kitchen and its list price. The quote your customer reads needs three more things: what you pay for that line, what you charge, and a way for her to say yes.
So the job is not typing. The job is reading the file, applying your numbers, and sending it somewhere she can sign and pay.
What is in a ProKitchen XML export
When you export the XML report from a finished design, you get:
- Every cabinet, panel and filler, by its code and description
- The quantity of each
- The list price of each line, from the manufacturer's catalog loaded in ProKitchen
- The catalog and the door style
- A separate section for each door line, so an island in a different finish comes out as its own part of the kitchen
That is the whole cabinet list, priced at list. Nothing in it needs retyping.
ProKitchen shows where the export is in its own four-minute tutorial: Export an XML report.
How most showrooms do it today
The designer prints the ProKitchen report, opens a spreadsheet, and types the cabinet list in again. Then the multiplier for that line, then the margin, then the total, then a PDF.
Where it goes wrong is usually the same:
- A line gets skipped, usually a filler or a panel.
- The island is a different door line with a different discount, and it gets the perimeter's number.
- The quote goes out as a PDF in an email, and nobody knows if she opened it.
Step by step
1. Export the XML from ProKitchen
Finish the design, then export the XML report. One file per kitchen is fine. If the island is a different door line, it is already its own section in the file.
2. Know your two numbers per cabinet line
- Your cost, as a share of list. If a line is 42% off list, you pay 58% of list.
- Your margin, what you add on top of your cost.
Work them out once per line you sell. After that they are the same on every job.
3. Apply them to every line
For example: a kitchen lists at $20,000. You pay 58% of list, so your cost is $11,600. At a 35% margin on the sale price, the customer's price is $11,600 divided by 0.65, which is $17,846.
Do it per section, not once for the kitchen, so the island gets its own line's numbers.
4. Decide what the customer sees
Some showrooms show every cabinet and its price. Some show one total per room. Pick one per quote. Either way she should never see your cost, your margin or your notes.
5. Send her a page, not a PDF
A link she can open on her phone: the design, the quote, the contract to sign, and a way to pay the deposit by card. You see when she opens it.
6. Follow up at 48 hours
If she has not answered in two days, ask again. Then again. A quote nobody chases is a quote somebody else wins.
Doing it in KBB Suite, free
This is the part of KBB Suite that is free forever.
- Drop in the ProKitchen XML. It reads the cabinet list and the list prices. A 2020 Design file works too.
- Set the room and what you pay for each cabinet line.
- Add your logo and colour.
- Send her the page. She can accept, sign and pay the deposit through your own Authorize.net account.
A priced quote comes out in minutes, with your name on it. Your designers keep drawing in ProKitchen exactly as they do now.
