Creating offers, processing bills of quantities – a process that often heavily demands inside sales. But what if specialized AI software could take over many steps? Companies that focus on innovation can drastically reduce the time needed for quote creation and relieve valuable specialists.

Processing Bills of Quantities - A Constant Occupation for Valuable Specialists?

Almost every building materials manufacturer and distributor knows it: Inside sales spends a significant portion of time processing sbills of quantities during quote creation. As the foundation for offer creation in construction, bills of quantities are essential, containing items for all services to be performed in a construction project.

Inside sales must do the following for each inquiry:

• Review the bill of quantity (mostly page-long PDF) and extract relevant positions
• Transfer data from the BOQ into systems
• Subsequently assign corresponding products to all relevant items
• Send the quote

A very time-consuming process that ties up valuable (specialist) resources and thus costs real money.

Background: These steps were difficult to automate in the past due to complexity alone when processing bills of quantities. Many software solutions for processing bills of quantities failed with the PDF format (only support GAEB) or had difficulties assigning the right products given the multitude of possible ways to phrase text in bills of quantities.

Software as Assistant in Building Materials Distribution

With the continuous development of AI technology, new possibilities emerge – companies that use specialized software can often more than halve the time needed for processing bills of quantities and creating offers.

Sales specialists must perform fewer manual work steps, have better overview, and can prioritize more easily. Throughout the entire process, quotation management software can massively relieve employees. The core features:

Recognize BOQ Items

Using artificial intelligence, the software reads incoming bills of quantities (even long PDFs) and recognizes which contained items are relevant. Data no longer needs to be manually extracted or typed. Employees see at a glance what they should process in the BOQ.

AI Product Suggestions

Intelligent software now suggests matching products from the company’s own portfolio. The software also takes quantities directly from the BOQ. Employees can thus quickly review suggestions instead of searching extensively themselves. And: The software continuously learns. With each completed offer, suggestions become more precise.

Inquiry Management Made Easy

Quotation management software also offers many features that greatly simplify inquiry management and the process overall. For example, the software recognizes not only BOQ items but also basic data such as construction projects and submission deadlines.

In the inquiry overview, employees can quickly filter, prioritize, and view all inquiry details with a click. Once the BOQ is fully processed, the data is directly transferred to the follow-up system (usually the ERP).

When Does Using AI Quotation Management Software Pay Off?

Quotation management software for automating offer creation can massively relieve employees, especially when many inquiries come in.

• If sales processes several hundred or even several thousand inquiries per year, automating the process is a major lever.
• This naturally also applies when processing inquiries is particularly time-intensive – then using AI software can pay off even with lower inquiry volumes.
• If sales can barely handle the volume of incoming inquiries and/or often submits offers late, this is also an indicator that using specialized software pays off.

For companies currently recording high effort, early implementation of an automation solution is a valuable opportunity to secure a competitive advantage.

The AI Quotation Management Software kinisto

kinisto is the AI-based software specifically for building materials manufacturers and distributors. With the intelligent software, inquiries can be processed much faster, better prioritized, and more comfortably managed. kinisto supports inside sales throughout the entire quotation process.