Price increases are an unavoidable part of the building industry. Steel, cladding, roller doors and accessories are regularly updated by suppliers, and if your customer delays accepting a quotation, yesterday's profitable job can quickly become tomorrow's loss.
To help members plan ahead, Quotec includes Date Forward Pricing — a simple feature that has been part of Quotec’s stack for years, but probably doesn’t get the full credit it deserves.
Sitting quietly within the Proposal workflow, this modest tool can make a meaningful difference when supplier price increases are on the horizon. It allows you to calculate a job using the supplier pricing that will apply on a future date, rather than relying solely on today’s material costs.
Instead of estimating the impact of an upcoming increase, or discovering the difference after a customer finally accepts their quote, you can price the project as though the materials were being ordered on the date you realistically expect to purchase them.
This gives you a clearer picture of the likely project cost before you commit to a selling price, helping you account for known supplier increases, make more informed pricing decisions and protect your margin.
For quotes with longer lead times, or during periods of annual supplier price changes, it’s a small feature that can take a lot of the uncertainty out of quoting.
Many projects don’t proceed immediately after a quotation is issued.
Your customer may be waiting on finance approval, council approval, internal sign-off, or simply need more time before they’re ready to commit. For larger projects, that sales cycle can stretch across weeks or even months.
The challenge is that supplier pricing doesn’t stand still while the customer makes their decision.
If a supplier price increase comes into effect during that period, the material costs used to prepare your original quotation may no longer reflect what you’ll actually pay when it’s time to place the order. Depending on the size of the project, even a relatively small percentage increase can have a noticeable impact on your expected margin.
By pricing the job against the anticipated material order date, you can:
For larger commercial projects, higher-value material orders or jobs with extended sales cycles, this can make a significant difference. Instead of finding out after the quote has been accepted that your material costs have moved, you can factor those changes into the project from the outset.
Once your building has been designed, open the Price window from within your job.
This displays your current project pricing using today's supplier costs.
Locate the Price Date field.
Select the future date that you expect to order materials or that corresponds with the supplier price increase.
After changing the date, Quotec recalculates the Bill of Materials using the supplier pricing effective on the selected date.
Any future price files that have already been deployed into your system will automatically be used where applicable.
Once recalculated, review:
You can then decide whether your quotation should be updated before sending it to your customer.
One of the easiest ways for margin to slip isn’t necessarily through poor estimating. It can simply be the result of time passing between quotation, acceptance and material ordering.
You may have prepared an accurate and profitable quotation based on today’s supplier pricing, but if the project isn’t ordered until after an announced price increase takes effect, those original costs can quickly become outdated.
Date Forward Pricing gives you visibility before that happens.
Rather than discovering the impact of increased material costs when you’re ready to raise purchase orders, you can see the effect of upcoming supplier pricing while you’re still preparing the quotation.
That gives you an opportunity to price the project appropriately from the outset, review your expected margin and make informed decisions about your selling price—rather than trying to recover additional costs after the customer has already accepted your quote.
The reality is that the date you quote a project and the date you order the materials are rarely the same.
Date Forward Pricing is particularly useful when:
By calculating the project against the expected material ordering date rather than simply today’s date, you get a more realistic view of what the job is likely to cost when it actually proceeds.
It’s a simple change in perspective, but one that can help your business protect profitability, price more confidently and avoid unwelcome surprises between quote and order.
Date Forward Pricing is a simple but powerful feature that helps you stay ahead of supplier price increases and quote with confidence.
Whether you're preparing quotations weeks in advance or planning for announced supplier pricing updates, this feature ensures your project reflects the costs that will apply when materials are actually ordered.
For a complete step-by-step guide, including screenshots and detailed instructions on changing the Price Date within Quotec, Read the Help File → Pricing a Job in the Future
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