Table of Contents
1. Building a Service Catalog and Rate Card Library
2. Enabling Guided Selling with Templates
3. Automated Approvals with Status Controls
Before vs. After BigTime Quotes
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Scenario
Picture a mid-sized IT services firm with around 200 employees, specializing in custom software, DevOps, and cloud migrations. Their projects typically ranged from $25K to over half a million dollars. As the company grew, they faced a major problem: their quoting process hadn’t kept up with their business needs.
Account managers were still building SOWs manually in Word and calculating budgets in spreadsheets. Getting internal approvals meant emailing PDFs around — and waiting. On average, it took 2 to 3 weeks to finalize a quote, which often delayed deals, frustrated prospects, and sometimes lost them outright.
Mistakes slipped through, too. Without standard templates or rate card enforcement, pricing was inconsistent and project handoffs were messy. This led to unexpected scope changes, billing disputes, and eroded margins.
Leadership knew they needed to overhaul how they packaged, priced, and approved work — not only to accelerate the sales cycle, but to give delivery teams complete clarity on what had been promised.
That’s when they decided to implement BigTime’s Quote Management.
Company Profile
- Industry: IT & Software Services
- Employees: ~200
- Average Project Size: $25,000 - $500,000
- Core Services: Custom app development, DevOps, cloud migrations
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Challenges:
- Manual quoting through Word and Excel
- High error rate in estimates and scope of work (SOW)
- Long sales cycles (2–3 weeks to generate a quote)
- Difficult tracking of quote approvals and versioning
Business Goals
- Cut the quote turnaround time by at least 50%.
- Eliminate manual pricing errors and enforce standardized rates.
- Ensure every SOW clearly spelled out scope, fees, and billing rules.
- Move from “word of mouth” handoffs to clean, data-backed project kickoffs.
- Create an audit trail to track who approved what, and when.
How They Did It
1. Building a Service Catalog and Rate Card Library
They started by loading all their standard services — discovery phases, development sprints, QA efforts, cloud provisioning — into BigTime’s service catalog. Each item included typical hours, bill rates, and recommended billing models.
They also imported multiple rate cards tailored by region and client type, ensuring that sales could only pick from approved pricing structures.
2. Enabling Guided Selling with Templates
Using BigTime’s quote templates, they set up common project types like:
- Fixed Fee cloud migrations (with milestone billing)
- Time & Materials app support
- Hybrid retainer + project builds
Now, when an account manager creates a quote, they simply select the right template and are guided through adding the client, contact, and project details. This eliminated the chaos of each rep inventing their own spreadsheet.
3. Automated Approvals with Status Controls
They replaced slow email chains with BigTime’s built-in approval workflow. Quotes moved from Under Review to Approved Internally automatically based on manager sign-offs, and could then be sent for client review (Under Customer Review) or pushed straight to Approved.
If last-minute changes were needed, Admins used the Recall feature to bring quotes back to a Draft state for edits. This kept all stakeholders aligned and ensured every version was documented in the Version History.
4. Role-Based Permissions
To keep control, they leveraged BigTime’s quoting roles:
- Quotes Admins managed templates and could approve, reject, or delete quotes.
- Quotes Managers created, edited, and pushed quotes through the approval process.
- Quotes Contributors used only pre-configured templates without modifying rates.
This structure reduced accidental scope or pricing changes.
5. Seamless Handoff to Projects
Once a quote hit the Approved stage, the sales team converted it directly into a live project in BigTime. All key details — the rate card, billing model, task budgets, even custom cost rates — flowed automatically into the new project record.
This meant delivery teams started work already knowing exactly what was sold, with no surprises.
From the Project Details view, they could also click a link back to the original quote for quick context.
Results
- Reduced time to quote from 2-3 weeks to under 24 hours.
- Increased win rates by 25%, thanks to quicker turnaround and more polished SOWs.
- Virtually eliminated pricing inconsistencies and rogue scoping.
- Created a reliable audit trail in the Version History, showing every approval, rejection, and change.
Before vs. After BigTime Quotes
| Before BigTime | After BigTime |
| Manual Word & Excel quotes | Guided quote wizard with templates & catalog |
| Email chains for approval | Automated approval steps with clear status flow |
| Hard to track changes | Full Version History with recall capability |
| Unclear handoff to delivery | Direct project creation with mapped billing & scope |
Key Takeaways
- Standardize your services and rates first. Building a clean catalog pays huge dividends by stopping every quote from becoming a one-off.
- Use approval statuses (like Under Review, Approved Internally, Approved) and recall wisely. They protect margins and keep sales & delivery on the same page.
- Link quoting directly to project creation. This ensures that what was sold is exactly what gets delivered, cutting down margin leakage and rework.
Ready to achieve similar results?
BigTime Quotes helps firms like this IT services company close deals faster, protect profits, and deliver confidently. To learn how to replicate this success, contact our team or explore more guides in the Knowledge Base.