Quoting configured products and confirming orders

How the Manufacturing pack records configured lines, has a person check each can be built, prices from your list and ends in a signed confirmation.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Manufacturing businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.

Some factories sell the same product every day. Others never build the same thing twice. A trailer with a particular axle and body, a switchboard with a specific set of breakers, a gate in a non-standard width and finish: each order is a combination of choices. That is where expensive mistakes hide. The salesperson quotes an option the factory cannot fit, the customer signs a quote that leaves out an accessory they assumed was included, and the dispute surfaces only when the finished product is on the truck.

The Manufacturing & distribution pack in Achekam's Industry CRM follows a configured order from request to signed confirmation, with a person checking the build at the point where checking is cheapest. Here is how it works and where its limits are.

Quote requests with configured lines

In the pack, a customer's enquiry becomes a Quote request, and each product on it is recorded as a configured line: the base product plus the options chosen. Writing the configuration down line by line, rather than in a paragraph of e-mail, is the first protection. It is much harder to misunderstand "colour: charcoal; hinge side: left; width: as per site drawing" than "same as last time but in grey".

A good configured line answers four questions:

• What is the base product?
• Which options were chosen, and which were deliberately left out?
• Which measurements or site conditions does it depend on?
• Which drawings or specifications does it refer to?

A request in words

A dealer asks for three steel gates for a client's site. Two are the standard size with the usual finish; the third is wider, with a different hinge side and a pedestrian door built in. On the quote request, that becomes three configured lines rather than one line saying "three gates". The odd one out is now impossible to miss, for the person checking the build, for the person pricing it and, later, for the welder who makes it.

A person checks every line can be built

Before the quotation goes out, the workflow has a person check that every configured line can actually be built. In most factories that is an engineer, a technical sales person or the production planner.

This step exists because the pack has no configuration rules. It will not stop a salesperson combining two options that cannot go together, or warn that a width is outside what your tooling handles. Those judgements belong to someone who knows your products, and the workflow makes sure they see every line before the customer does.

Make the check real rather than a click:

1. The checker reads each line against the drawings or the product's specification.
2. Anything unclear goes back to the salesperson as a question, not a guess.
3. Lead-time concerns, such as a bought-in component with a long delivery, are noted at this stage.
4. Only then does the checker confirm the line.

Priced from your own price list

The quotation is priced from the business's own price list. The pack sets no prices of its own, and none of its starter catalogue items carries a price: you decide what every product and option costs the customer.

That keeps commercial decisions where they belong. If a configuration needs a special price, have the person with pricing authority set it, and keep the reason with the quote request so that the next similar request is priced consistently.

The order confirmation, signed electronically

The workflow ends with an order confirmation that the customer signs electronically. That signature turns an accepted quote into a firm order the factory can schedule against.

The signing uses Achekam's document signing: signature and initials fields placed on the document, signers in order or all at once, an expiry and reminders, and the signed PDF with its completion certificate filed back into Documents. A workflow step can also send the customer a request for anything still missing, such as a site drawing or a deposit confirmation, and the customer's answer moves the task on.

In the Industry CRM, some pipeline stages have conditions a record must meet before it can enter them, such as a customer being named, an amount being set or a signature being done. That is the kind of rule that stops a quote being treated as a confirmed order on a verbal yes. Check which conditions your pack's stages carry before you rely on one.

What stays outside the pack

The pack follows the commercial side of a configured order. It does not do the factory's planning:

Keep your engineering drawings and production plan in the systems you use for them, and use the signed confirmation as the hand-over point between sales and the factory floor. If you are setting up bills of materials for configured products, Investopedia's guide to the bill of materials explains what a BOM lists, the main types used in manufacturing and how it drives costing and production planning.

Before you quote the next configured order

Agree who checks buildability for each product family, make sure your price list covers the common options, and settle how special prices are approved. Have the starter order confirmation wording reviewed so it states clearly that the signed configuration is what will be built. If a dealer is placing the order, check they were onboarded with approved terms first; see onboarding a dealer. And when a configured product later comes back under warranty, the signed lines are the first thing to look at; warranty claims with serial numbers and photos explains that process.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.