Answers to the most common Questions

kinisto was developed for construction suppliers (manufacturers and distributors). These companies typically need to offer products from their portfolio matching items in extensive bills of quantities. kinisto can significantly accelerate this process - companies often save 50% or more in inquiry processing time.

kinisto is fundamentally suitable for products from all trades: civil engineering and landscaping, building construction, interior construction, electrical, plumbing, heating, etc. - wherever offer creation is based on BOQs.

If your company typically offers custom manufacturing or complex variants, the use of AI product suggestions may not be practically feasible. In this case, kinisto can still be used for inquiry management and BOQ reading.

kinisto recognizes relevant items in BOQs and automatically suggests products for offers. Thus, kinisto is also suitable for optimizing and automating processes in other industries.

Generally: If offers are created based on bills of quantities, using kinisto can make sense.

Each folder in kinisto has its own email address. Inquiries can be forwarded to this address – both automatically or individually by employees.

From Outlook, inquiries can also be easily dragged and dropped into kinisto’s overview. These are then also read out automatically.

Via API, inquiries can also be transmitted to kinisto from other systems.

Relevant items in bills of quantities are recognized based on keywords. These keywords can be configured by yourself.

kinisto recognizes quote inquiries directly in email texts, even when there’s no separate BOQ. The system automatically reads the requested items from the email text and extracts associated quantities and units where available.

You can process both PDF bills of quantities and GAEB files with kinisto.

Product data is either uploaded to kinisto via Excel file or regularly synchronized through a direct interface to the ERP or PIM system.

kinisto can also suggest product variants. However, this is somewhat more complex, as it depends on various factors (are there variant numbers / is the product freely configurable / is there a configurator).

Whether intelligent matching is possible in your specific case is best checked together in a consultation.

Product prices are stored in kinisto with the product data. Product- and customer-specific prices and discounts can also be configured - it’s best to discuss this with us.

Alternatively, it’s possible to transfer configured quotes to the ERP and add prices there to generate the quote.

Artificial intelligence is used in kinisto to reliably read specifications and recognize relevant items in large amounts of text. Basic data such as construction projects and submission dates are also extracted from incoming emails using AI.

Furthermore, intelligent product suggestions are based on AI-driven matching between article data and requested BOQ items. This way kinisto can automatically suggest matching products from the product catalog.

kinisto recognizes the construction project, submission date, and possibly also the bid deadline (your customer’s submission date). It also recognizes whether a quote has already been created for these inquiry items.

After each completed offer, kinisto remembers which products match which requested items. When the same product is requested in another inquiry, the software automatically suggests it.

kinisto learns with each finalized offer and the suggestions become increasingly accurate.

Yes, kinisto learns. With each completed offer, kinisto remembers for each BOQ item which product was offered. This way the product suggestions become increasingly accurate over time.

Initially, kinisto can be given a “learning advantage” based on historical quote data or standard texts. However, this is usually only worthwhile if the data already exists and doesn’t need to be created specifically. After several offers have been created with kinisto, suggestions become very good very quickly even without historical data.

This depends on the respective product portfolio and type of inquiries. kinisto learns continuously – often suitable product suggestions are already visible from the first offer. We recommend 50-150 created offers for good results, depending on product portfolio complexity.

Yes. However, historical offer texts must have been created with reference to specification numbers, be available in machine-readable form, and the associated BOQ must be available.

kinisto also remembers when multiple products were offered and can suggest combinations.

By clicking on the suggested product, a list of other AI suggestions appears that can be directly selected. Alternatively, kinisto’s intelligent product search, which finds products in real-time while typing, can be used to select a suitable alternative from the complete product portfolio.

No, the offers you complete are only used for your product suggestions. There is no cross-customer AI.

If a conversion factor is specified in the product data, kinisto automatically converts. If this isn’t possible, kinisto gives a notice and the converted quantity can be supplemented by the user.

kinisto is a pure cloud web application (Software as a Service). It doesn’t need to be installed, operated, or hosted by you. You automatically always have the latest version.

kinisto can be connected to various ERP, CRM, and PIM systems.

For ERP systems, kinisto contains pre-built interfaces in SAP IDoc format, a pre-built REST API, as well as the ability to configure individual interface formats.

Further interfaces and webhooks as well as data exports in various formats are also possible. Which solution best suits your IT strategy can best be clarified in direct conversation.

kinisto is hosted with one of our cloud providers Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

If you decide to use kinisto, you receive direct access to your kinisto account.

We support you with the initial upload of product data and explain the basic functions of the software in an onboarding meeting.

You can now use the software directly for offer creation.

kinisto is fully usable right from the start.

For extended integration via interfaces, some time may need to be planned - in this case, we can best clarify the expected duration in direct conversation.

kinisto is used as Software as a Service and companies can book quotas based on their inquiry volume.

Use is typically worthwhile when at least one person spends at least half their working time on offer creation.

Data processing in kinisto is GDPR-compliant and takes place in data centers protected according to current state of technology. Data from different customers is logically separated. Data is stored encrypted.

Your data belongs only to you and is not used otherwise. Not even for AI training – except of course for your own product suggestions. Naturally, there is a standard data processing agreement (DPA) and a description of technical and organizational measures according to GDPR (TOMs).

All uploaded and created data in kinisto belongs to you and is not used otherwise.