Managing Quotes and Pricing with Sales Partners

Separate the prices and the people setting them

• The supplier’s priceWhat the supplying business charges the partner for the specified products or work.
• The customer’s priceWhat the partner quotes to its customer, including the additions or pricing rules the partner controls.

Use names that staff understand. Be clear whether a percentage means markup on cost or margin as a share of the selling price; those calculations produce different results.

Identify any separate delivery, installation or service charges. A single unexplained percentage can hide differences between what the supplier provides and what the partner adds.

Keep each business’s access appropriate

Decide who can see supplier prices, partner adjustments and final customer documents. A partner should not gain access to another partner’s customers or pricing simply because both use the same platform.

Apply those permissions to downloads, reports and shared links as well as screens. Hiding a column is not enough if the same information appears in an exported file.

Within each business, staff may have different roles. Someone preparing a quote may not need permission to change the base price list or approve an unusual discount.

Keep the specification with the calculation

A partner and supplier need to price the same work. Keep the selected products, measurements, drawings and options connected to the quote rather than passing around totals without their basis.

Arris Stone supports this relationship between countertop fabricators and dealers. Fabricators set base prices, while dealers use those prices and add their own sales margin when preparing customer quotes.

If a partner changes the design or quantity, review the affected prices and delivery details together. Staff should be able to see whether a change is a draft or has been sent for a decision.

Decide what happens when prices change

A new supplier price list should not quietly rewrite a quote already sent to a customer. Preserve the prices used for that version and decide how new prices apply to later revisions.

Show whether a quote needs rechecking before the partner can accept or submit it. Include any expiry dates or conditions your businesses have agreed.

Keep a record of who changed a price or approved an exception. That helps staff explain a difference without relying on someone remembering a phone conversation.

Make acceptance and ordering clear

The end customer accepting a partner’s quote and the supplier accepting the partner’s order can be separate steps. Decide what each business needs to confirm.

Carry the agreed specification into the order, including the relevant contacts and location. Keep questions about access, measurements or timing visible until they are resolved.

Turning an accepted quote into a job explains the next handoff, from agreed work to staff instructions, materials and scheduling.

Try the process from both businesses

Prepare a quote as the partner, review it as the supplier and open the document intended for the customer. Check that each view contains the right prices and useful details.

Then change a quantity, update a price list and submit an accepted order. Include a user who should have limited access so permissions are checked as part of the work.

Compare an existing dealer portal, additions to current software and a custom tool against those tasks. The useful result is a shared process each business can understand and maintain.

Your next step

Take one partner quote and label who supplies each price, who can see it and who confirms the order. Use that example to plan the screens, documents and permissions your process needs.