how to obtain and print a material list from an estimate?

[AngieBeri]

We are an electrical contractor. The process in our company is that we receive a call from a possible customer regarding a job. We will book an appointment for our estimator to go to the job site to review what is required , make notes and then return to the office to build an estimate. After the estimate has been built we email it to the customer . We require a 30% deposit in order to book a job. the issue we have is , I want to be able to print the material listed in the estimate so I can contact our vendors to see how long the material will take to come in, so that when the customer calls and says they want to go ahead(usually within a week of us emailing the estimate) and give us a deposit, I cannot book the job unless I know we will have all the material in for the job .  The problem is unless you book a job, you cannot copy and print a material list.  Why can you not design the estimate so that you see the material list in the same way you see it on the pending invoice page? some of our jobs are 3 pages long of material.  I need to be sure all the items in the job can be ordered and here in time for us to start the job.. Currently in order to do this I have to sell and book the estimate in order for the material list to be on the page where you can copy it.( this is the invoice pending screen)   it is extremely frustrating to book and then cancel a job  to get the material list. Other wise i have to manually write out the list and hope I didn't miss anything when looking to see what we have in stock versus what we have to order....

[RandiThompson]

It's not perfect but if you highlight everything you can copy and paste into a excel sheet. Another option if its not a huge list you can hit control P and print the page

[AngieBeri]

I have tried the control P . unfortunately  you can miss some when the estimate is more that one page .. and the copy and paste is excel won't work as the picture scheme of the #'s of pieces  get cut off as the square for the amount is in the same cell and cannot be fixed  I do the copy and paste into Excel once it is sold . doing it in the estimate is just awful . the paste is all mixed up... It would be so simple if you could copy and paste the same way you do on an invoice. But it seems the qty gets 1/2 cut off in the paste for the materials.

[RandiThompson]

I wonder if that's a paste setting or maybe your not highlighting all the headers?? It works for me?  I tried it on an estimate with lots of items also and it formats a little weird but everything is in its own cell 

 

[AngieBeri]

This is not a task,, They do not add tasks.....they add notes in the bottom of the job . We have to review these before we can add to the job invoice. I have contacted support numerous times and they have all told me it cannot be done  due to how our business process goes... and they are the ones that suggested to post here so perhaps you could add this option....

[Sheena_Palacios]

Hi @AngieBeri -- do you have your pricebook setup to link materials + equipment to service task codes? This is the best way to get a list of materials because once the salesmen add the task to the invoice it will show all the materials + equipment that is required or commonly used for that specific job. This works with estimate and proposal templates too.