Quote-to-Cash in 48 Hours

The Challenge

A small metal fabrication shop in Birmingham was losing quotes to faster competitors. Their manual process took 90 minutes per quote:

• Sales receives email with drawings
• Manual material takeoff from PDF
• Spreadsheet pricing with outdated costs
• Email back and forth for revisions
• Manual invoice creation if won

Result: 2-day turnaround, frequent pricing errors, lost quotes.

The Solution

We built three focused automations in a 2-week sprint:

1. Email → ClickUp Parser

• Incoming quote requests auto-create ClickUp tasks
• Attachments extracted and linked
• Customer details pre-filled from CRM

2. Material Cost Sync

• Daily supplier price scraping
• Auto-update pricing spreadsheet
• Alert on major cost changes

3. Quote → Invoice Pipeline

• One-click quote generation from ClickUp
• PDF creation with current pricing
• Auto-convert to Xero draft invoice when accepted

The Results

Time savings:

• Quote creation: 90 min → 15 min
• Weekly hours saved: 12
• Annual value: £18,000 (at £30/hour)

Business impact:

• Quote turnaround: 48 hours → 4 hours
• Win rate: +22% (faster quotes win more)
• Pricing errors: down 85%
• SaaS consolidation: Saved £45/month

The Tech Stack

• Trigger: Tally form + email forwarding
• Automation: n8n (self-hosted)
• Data: Google Sheets + ClickUp
• Output: Xero API for invoicing

Total monthly cost: £12 (just the ClickUp plan they already had)

Client Testimonial

“The quote automation changed our business. We’re responding same-day now and our win rate has gone up noticeably. The investment paid for itself in the first month.”

— Operations Manager

ROI Analysis

• Investment: £2,400 (Build Sprint)
• Monthly savings: £1,500 (12 hours × £30/hour)
• Payback period: 1.6 months
• Annual ROI: 750%

Plus intangible benefits: better customer experience, fewer errors, less stress.

Want similar results? Book an Automation MOT → to discover your top automation opportunities.