Quoting Software for PVC and Aluminium Manufacturers
A survey comes in with eight windows. Every one has millimetre dimensions, two are tilt-and-turn, one needs an insect screen, all of them need internal and external sills. To answer, someone in the office opens the pricing spreadsheet written a few years ago and starts looking things up: the profile in one supplier's list, the hardware in another, the sealed unit with low-e and argon in a third, then the screens, the sills, the installation labour and the transport.
The spreadsheet works. The trouble is that only one person in the company really understands it, and when a supplier sends a new price list those prices have to be changed by hand in dozens of places across several sheets. And between the signed quote and the cutting order, the dimensions get typed out one more time.
A quoting configurator for joinery puts the calculation rules in one place and lets the office pick a configuration instead of redoing the maths.
Where manual quoting gets complicated
- Complicated quotes wait, because not everyone can produce them. They queue up behind the one person who knows the spreadsheet, and if that person is away, the enquiry sits.
- The most common mistake isn't the price, it's the configuration: a profile paired with hardware that won't carry it, a size beyond the limit for that opening type, a glass unit that doesn't fit the chamber of the chosen system.
- When the customer asks for "the same, but with triple glazing", the quote is rebuilt almost from scratch. Versions travel in parallel by e-mail and nobody is sure which one was sent last.
- Between the accepted quote and the workshop, information is retyped: the dimensions go separately into the profile order, the glass order and the hardware list. This is where expensive scrap comes from, because a wrong measurement is only cut once.
How quoting can look with a configurator
Prices from rules, not from hidden formulas
Profile system, opening type, glass unit, hardware and accessories become options with their own prices. The price of a window comes out of its dimensions and options, not out of a formula only one person can read. When a supplier issues a new list, it changes in one place.
Combinations that can't be made can't be chosen
Size limits per opening type, maximum sash weight, which glass units fit which profile system — all of it lives in the configurator as rules. What can't be produced disappears from the list as you configure, not when the workshop complains.
A visual quote, sent in minutes
For each item: the opening drawing, dimensions, system, glazing, accessories and price. The customer sees what they asked for and what they pay for, and alternatives sit side by side in the same document instead of in three attachments.
Production order and material lists straight from the accepted quote
The accepted quote produces the profile cutting list, the glass order with pane sizes, the hardware list per item and the installation accessories. Nobody copies measurements between documents any more.
Before and after, in quoting for PVC and aluminium joinery
Today
With a configurator
Today
Dimensions are entered once for the quote and again for the cutting and glass orders.
With a configurator
Dimensions are entered once, while configuring, and carry through to the profile cutting list and the glass order.
Today
A new profile price list is copied in by hand, sheet by sheet, and quotes in progress stay on the old prices.
With a configurator
The list is updated in one place; new quotes use it automatically, while sent quotes keep the price they went out with.
Today
Whether an opening type is feasible at the requested size depends on the experience of whoever is quoting.
With a configurator
Size and sash-weight limits per opening type are rules in the system: what isn't possible never appears as an option.
Today
Screens, sills and shutters are forgotten at quoting stage and become an awkward conversation after signature.
With a configurator
Accessories appear as priced options on every item, so they are in the quote from the first version.
Today
The triple-glazed variant lives in a different file from the first one, and nobody knows which was sent.
With a configurator
Every variant is a version of the same quote, with what changed and what the customer actually received.
What a configurator needs to know for PVC and aluminium joinery
A generic configurator calculates prices. One that genuinely helps a window manufacturer has to know how a window is actually built.
Compatibility rules across system, opening and hardware
Profile, opening type and hardware are chosen together, not separately. Width and height limits per opening type, maximum weight per hinge and the glass units each profile chamber accepts are conditions, not suggestions.
Mixed units in a single item: linear metre, square metre and piece
Profile and beading are calculated by length, glass by area with a minimum billable area, hardware by piece, screens and sills per item. One window pulls all three kinds of calculation into a single price.
Margins, cutting waste and rounding
Cutting from standard bar lengths creates waste that belongs in the cost. So do welding allowances on cutting sizes, rounding glass area upwards, and minimum billable thresholds on very small items.
Material lists per item, not per quote
The workshop doesn't work with the quote total, it works with the item: window number four, with its profile, its cutting sizes, its glass and its hardware. The configurator has to produce materials at that level.
Try a configurator
A working public demo on another configurable product: you pick the dimensions and options, and the drawing, the itemised price and the bill of materials recalculate live.
Open the demoThe enquiries too, not just the quoting
Demand is triggered by an event: a renovation, a new house, or a window that no longer closes. The search runs on product plus city, the visitor wants a price, and by the next day they've gone elsewhere if you haven't answered.
- The search runs on product plus city, and competition on those terms is fierce, so the quality of the landing page — not just the bid — decides who gets the enquiry.
- Response speed decides who takes the order in this sector: whoever puts a price in first holds a lead that's hard to claw back, even with a better offer later.
- Separate pages per area, with the product and a fast path to enquire, outperform one general page bidding on everything.
- The content that brings enquiries is real installations shot on site, not renders — because a customer whose window no longer closes wants to see one fitted correctly.
Real project
See a system built for a manufacturer
Case study: how quoting and production look once information travels in a single flow.
Let's look at how a quote is calculated at your workshop
In the free audit we look at the file you quote from today, at your supplier price lists and at what reaches the workshop. Then we tell you plainly what can become rules and what can't.