The Quote Builder in KEBS is the commercial engine of the quote-to-cash workflow. It is where a sales or pre-sales team translates a won opportunity into a detailed, costed, and approvable proposal. Quotes built here drive the Total Order Value shown on the opportunity, feed cost and margin calculations, and form the contractual basis for billing once a project is live. This article introduces the Quote tab, the Quote Creation Studio, rate cards, and the product line structure that makes up a completed quote.
The Quote Tab on an Opportunity
Give revenue owners and finance leads instant visibility into the commercial position of an opportunity by surfacing the approved quote value, total cost, and gross margin in a single view, so that deal profitability is always clear before a project starts.
Every opportunity in KEBS has a Quote tab in its navigation bar. This tab lists all the quotes that have been created for that opportunity. Quotes are versioned automatically, so each iteration of the commercial proposal is preserved. The tab header shows the total number of quotations alongside the opportunity quotes label.
Each quote card on this tab displays:
| Element | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Status Badge | The current approval state of the quote. Options include Draft, Pending Approval, Approved, and Rejected. Only an Approved quote can be used to generate a project. |
| Quote Name and Version | The name of the quote combined with its version number (e.g. Customer Portal Maintenance Copy | V1). Each time a quote is revised and saved as a new version, the version number increments. |
| QID | A unique system-generated identifier for this specific quote version (e.g. QID: 3180) |
| Last Modified | The date the quote was last edited, with the name of the person who made the change |
| Total Order Value | The total revenue this quote proposes to generate. This value flows up to the opportunity’s Total Order Value field. |
| Total Cost | The aggregate cost of all resources and services included in the quote, pulled from rate card data |
| Total Gross Margin | The difference between Total Order Value and Total Cost, representing the deal’s profitability in dollar terms |
The action icons on the right of each quote card allow you to flag a quote for review, clone it to create a new version, view the quote history, or delete it. The + Create Quote button at the top right of the tab opens the Quote Creation Studio to start a new quote from scratch.
The Quote Creation Studio
Reduce the time it takes to produce a commercially accurate quote by giving pre-sales teams three distinct paths depending on whether they are starting fresh, reusing a prior engagement structure, or leveraging AI to accelerate the build.
Clicking + Create Quote from the Quote tab opens the Quote Creation Studio. This screen presents three distinct paths for building a quote. Each path is designed for a different situation and level of input available at the time of quoting.
✏️ Build From Scratch
Manually construct the quote by selecting services, adding position lines, entering effort estimates, and allowing KEBS to calculate costs from the rate card. Best used when the engagement scope is well-defined and the team has a clear view of the resource mix required.
📁 Import Quote
Upload a quote structure from an external file or copy the structure from an existing KEBS quote. Best used when the engagement is similar to a previously delivered project or when a commercial template has been prepared outside KEBS.
🤖 KAIS Powered Wizard BETA
An AI-assisted creation flow powered by the KAIS intelligence layer. The wizard uses information from the opportunity, account history, and comparable past deals to suggest services, positions, effort estimates, and pricing. Best used when early-stage scoping conversations have happened but detailed planning is not yet complete. This feature is currently in beta and the suggestions should always be reviewed before submission.
Rate Cards: The Cost Foundation of Every Quote
Ensure that every quote built in KEBS uses pre-approved, entity-specific cost rates rather than manual estimates, so that margin calculations are accurate and consistent across all proposals regardless of who builds the quote.
Rate cards are managed in the Admin Programs section of KEBS, accessible from the More Apps area. The Admin Programs page contains a library of administrative configuration tools. The Rate Card tile opens the rate card management screen where administrators define the cost per hour for each position, broken down by entity, division, sub-division, location, and experience band.
Opening the Rate Card tile displays the rate card grid, which is split into two sections: Man Power for people-based cost rates and Non Man Power for other cost categories such as expenses or non-human resources.
Each row in the Man Power rate card contains:
| Column | What it defines |
|---|---|
| Position | The job role this rate applies to, such as Project Manager, Consultant, or AI/ML Engineer |
| Work Location | The city or geography from which the resource will work (e.g. Chennai, Bengaluru) |
| Entity | The legal entity within your organisation that this rate belongs to |
| Division and Sub-Division | The internal organisational hierarchy that scopes which projects this rate applies to |
| Rate Card | A numeric rate card identifier used to link the row to quote configurations |
| Billing Currency | The currency in which the cost is expressed (e.g. USD) |
| Quote Unit | The unit against which the cost is measured, typically Hour |
| Cost/Hr | The internal cost per hour for this position in the specified location and experience band. This is the value KEBS uses to calculate Total Cost in the quote. |
| Years of Exp | The experience band this rate applies to (e.g. 0 to 3 years, 3 to 7 years) |
| Start Date and End Date | The validity period of this rate. KEBS uses the rate that is active during the quote’s engagement dates. |
| Project Location | Whether the resource is working Onshore or Offshore, which typically affects the rate applied |
Product Lines: Services, Positions, and Effort Inside a Quote
Enable pre-sales and delivery teams to build quotes that are accurate at the resource level, so that the Total Order Value, Total Cost, and Gross Margin figures are grounded in real effort estimates rather than high-level approximations.
Once inside the quote builder, the quote is structured as a hierarchy. At the top level are Services, which represent the major work streams or delivery categories within the engagement (for example, Sales Force, Data Engineering, or Cloud Infrastructure). Under each service sit Product Lines, which correspond to individual positions or roles contributing to that service.
The quote summary bar at the top of the quote builder displays the aggregate financial position across all services:
Each product line row within a service represents one position and contains the following columns:
| Column | What it defines |
|---|---|
| Product Lines | The position or role being quoted, such as AI/ML Engineer or Project Manager. This is selected from the rate card position list. |
| Location | The city the resource will be working from, used to match the correct rate card row |
| Unit | The billing unit for this position, typically Hour for time-based engagements |
| Count | The number of resources of this type included in the quote |
| Entity | The legal entity supplying this resource, if different from the account-level entity |
| Division | The internal division the resource belongs to, used for cost attribution and reporting |
| Total Price | The revenue generated by this position line, calculated from the billing rate and effort estimate |
| Total Cost | The internal cost of this position line, pulled from the rate card based on position, location, and entity |
| Total GM | The gross margin for this line, calculated as Total Price minus Total Cost |
The tabs above the service sections (showing icons for All, individual resources, and services) allow you to toggle between viewing all product lines together, filtering to a specific resource type, or viewing service-level summaries. This is particularly useful on large quotes with many position lines across multiple services.
The quote header also shows the quote metadata: the QID, billing type (e.g. Time And Material), and the engagement date range (e.g. 1st Jan 2026 to 30th Jun 2026). The Edit button at the top right puts the quote into edit mode, where positions, effort, and pricing can be adjusted. Once edits are complete, the quote must go through the approval workflow again before the updated figures flow back to the opportunity.
