From Deck to Quote: When a Presentation Becomes a Priced Proposal
A dealer deck shows the range; a quote prices the selection. Learn when to switch and what Furniture Connect builds for each stage.
A dealer meeting has two halves. In the first, you show the range and the dealer decides what they're interested in. In the second, they want numbers for the pieces they've picked, for their stores, with their terms. The first half is a presentation. The second is a quote. They're different documents built from the same catalog, and knowing which you're producing saves rebuilding one into the other.
What the presentation is for
Showing. The collection in a setting, the finishes, the pieces, indicative pricing and availability, in your branding, exported as an editable PowerPoint [1]. It's built for an audience and it's meant to be talked over. Whether the pricing on it binds you depends on what the slide says and your terms, not on the fact that it's a deck, so word indicative pricing as indicative.
What the quote is for
Pricing an order. In Furniture Connect the agent builds a priced, branded quote or furniture pack from a single message: it selects products from the catalog, picks a finish for each, and adds them to a draft quote [2]. You review each line, swap products or finishes, price anything it flags, and ask for the PDF when the selection is right [2].
The inputs can be any of four things [2]:
- A typed description of the job.
- A cost sheet or schedule, which it turns into a line-by-line quote using your names, quantities and prices.
- A floorplan, from which it reads each room and its dimensions and furnishes the plan.
- A short brief, which gives you a draft selection to work from.
Prices come from the catalog or from you. A product with no price in the catalog still goes on the quote, and the agent flags the line as needing a price rather than inventing one [2].
Packs and tiers
For contract work, build-to-rent and residential schemes, a quote can carry dwelling types (one, two and three bed) or named tiers, and the PDF includes a side-by-side pack options page [2]. For a manufacturer selling to a dealer this is the "good, better, best" selection on one document, with the pieces and the prices for each.
Two outputs
A branded PDF for the client, and an Excel file for internal use with your working numbers in it [2]. The PDF is what the dealer sees; the spreadsheet is what your sales ops sees. If you share the client's website, the agent can style the quote with their brand alongside yours [2]; check the result, since how the two brands are laid out is the agent's choice until you change it.
When to switch
Switch from deck to quote at the moment the conversation turns from "what do you have" to "what will these cost me". Practically:
- The dealer has named pieces and quantities: quote.
- They're asking about a scheme, project or pack: quote, with tiers if they need alternative specifications or dwelling options.
- They want to see the range in their finishes before deciding: presentation.
- A trade show or a first meeting: presentation.
Don't try to make the deck do the quote's job. A deck with 40 price lines is a bad deck and a worse quote.
What stays the rep's
Selection, in both. The agent proposes products from the catalog for a brief, and the rep decides whether they're the right ones for this dealer [2]. Pricing basis: the catalog holds the prices; the rep knows which price this account gets and what's been agreed. And the judgment on flagged lines: a line the agent couldn't price is a decision, not an omission.
What this isn't
The quote itself is a priced proposal, not the order. If your account has a connected ERP, such as OrderWise, you can send the approved quote to it as an order from the quote; otherwise the order goes through whatever process your business uses.
For the presentation half, see how to build a dealer deck from Furniture Connect. For the whole picture, see selling from the catalog.
