Tiếng Việt
日本語For a technical services company, the quote and the contract are the two documents that decide how fast a deal closes. Yet at many 20-30 person companies, both are still built by hand every single time: engineers text specs over Zalo, sales copies them into an old Word file, accounting adjusts the pricing, and the final contract gets printed, signed by hand, scanned, and emailed back to the client. What looks like a simple process actually passes through 4-5 people and 3-4 different tools before the customer ever sees the final quote.
This case study looks at a 25-person technical services company that digitized its entire quote-to-contract process with Odoo – cutting quote creation time from half a day down to a few minutes, and eliminating the print-sign-scan step altogether.
Table of contents
💡 Insight: The biggest problem isn’t how fast a quote gets drafted – it’s that technical data (specs, line items, pricing) has to be re-entered by multiple people, multiple times. Every re-entry is a chance for something to drift – and in technical quoting, that drift usually only surfaces after the contract is already signed.
CURRENT STATE
Current state: how much time is a manual quote-to-contract process really costing?
A technical quote passes through too many hands before it reaches the client
A field engineer finalizes the specs, sales builds the Word document, accounting rechecks the pricing, and a manager approves it over email. Each handoff is a wait – and a chance to copy the wrong line, use the wrong unit, or miss the latest price update.
No one can say for certain which version of the quote is the latest one
A Word file gets passed back and forth so many times that every edit creates another version: “v2,” “v3 final,” “v3 final for real.” When the client replies, sales has to dig back through to figure out which version they’re even looking at.
Contract signing still depends on meeting in person or mailing paper
For clients outside the city, a contract has to be printed, signed by hand, scanned or couriered back and forth – a round trip that can take 3-5 days just to get a signature, while a competitor using e-signature could close the same deal in a few hours.
Approved quote data doesn’t automatically flow into the contract or the invoice
Once the client signs off, accounting has to re-key every line item into the contract, then re-key it again to issue the invoice – three separate entries of the same data, and three separate chances for something to go wrong.
COMPARISON
Before and after digitization: a direct comparison
After implementing Odoo, this 25-person technical services company saw a clear shift in how its quote-to-contract process actually runs day to day:
| Operational step | Before digitization | After digitization with Odoo |
|---|---|---|
| Building a technical quote | Manually built in Word, half a day per quote | Built from a ready-made template with line items and pricing; done in minutes |
| Version control | Multiple “v2, v3 final” files sent over email | One single version, with edit history tracked automatically in the system |
| Internal approval | Sent by email, waiting on a manager to notice and respond | Automatic approval routing by deal value, with instant in-system notification |
| Signing the contract | Print, hand-sign, scan, or courier – taking 3-5 days | Signed online with e-signature, completed within hours |
| Invoicing after signing | Every line item re-keyed into the accounting software | Invoice generated automatically from the signed quote, no re-entry needed |
HOW-TO
How to build the quote-to-contract process in Odoo
Three areas need to be tightly linked: CRM (tracking sales opportunities), Sales (quotation templates and approval flows), and Sign (electronic contract signing). When all three sit on the same platform, an approved quote can turn into a signed contract in a few clicks, instead of being rebuilt from scratch.
The first step is standardizing quotation templates for each type of technical service the company offers – each template already has the line-item structure, technical descriptions, and standard pricing built in, so engineers only need to adjust the specs for each project instead of typing everything from scratch. Pricing is managed centrally through a price list, so any price change automatically applies to every new quote going forward.
The next step is setting up automatic approval routing by contract value: quotes under a certain threshold are automatically sent to the client once sales confirms, while quotes above that threshold get routed to the right approving manager – no longer dependent on whether a manager happened to check their inbox in time.
Once the client agrees, the quote converts into a sales order and goes out with an e-signature link through Odoo Sign – the client reviews the terms and signs directly in their browser, no printing required. As soon as it’s signed, the system automatically generates the contract and allows invoicing based on the exact confirmed data, removing the manual re-entry step entirely.
If your business is looking to standardize its own quote-to-contract process, you can check out Sonix’s Odoo implementation services.
The result after implementation: the time to build a technical quote dropped from half a day to a few minutes, contract signing time dropped from several days to a few hours, and the accounting team no longer has to re-enter the same data three separate times for a single contract.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
| Key point | What it means for your business |
|---|---|
| Standardized templates eliminate manual re-typing | Cuts quote creation time from half a day to a few minutes. |
| Automatic approval routing by deal value | No longer dependent on whether a manager happens to check email in time. |
| E-signature replaces print-sign-scan | Contract signing completed in hours instead of days. |
| Data flows automatically from quote to contract to invoice | Eliminates three separate manual entries of the same data. |
How long does your quote-to-contract process take from start to finish?
Book a 30-minute discovery call so Sonix can review your current process with you and design a digitized quote-to-contract flow tailored to your technical services business.
Hundreds of businesses using Odoo in Vietnam have already started this journey.
Sonix – Your success is our joy.
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