In this article
The spreadsheet stack is a reasonable place to start
Nearly every production company begins with a quote template, a gear sheet, a shared calendar and a group chat. That is a sensible stack. It costs nothing, everyone can use it, and it bends to whatever the job needs.
It also has no opinion about anything, which is exactly why it works early and why it stops working later.
Six signs you have passed the point
Two of these is normal. Four means the spreadsheets are now costing more than they save, and the cost is paid in the least recoverable currency you have, which is the time of the people who could be selling the next job.
- Someone has to be asked which version of the quote is current.
- A gear conflict was found during load out rather than during quoting.
- The invoice was built by copying the quote by hand, and once it was copied wrong.
- Crew availability lives in a text thread that only one person can read.
- A client saw a file that was meant to be internal.
- Onboarding a new coordinator takes a week because the process lives in one person.
Do not migrate everything
The most common failed migration is the ambitious one. A team decides to move quoting, inventory, crew, warehouse and invoicing in the same fortnight, halfway through a busy season, and by week three nobody trusts either system.
Move one thing at a time, and move the thing that is furthest upstream first. In this business that is the catalog, because everything downstream prices from it.
A four week sequence that works
| Week | Do this | Stop when |
|---|---|---|
| One | Consolidate the gear catalog. Agree categories, rates, quantities and replacement values, then import the CSV. | A quote can be priced entirely from the catalog with no manual lines. |
| Two | Build every new quote in the system. Keep the old template for anything already in flight. | Nobody reaches for the template out of habit. |
| Three | Take approved quotes into show records. Venue, schedule, crew calls, files with audiences. | The crew are getting their information from one place. |
| Four | Pull sheets and invoices. Warehouse prepares from approved scope, invoices convert from approved quotes. | Nobody is retyping a number that already exists. |
What to clean up before you import
The import is the easy part. The decisions are the work, and they are much harder to change afterwards because a year of documents will reference them.
- Categories should match the words your team actually says, not a taxonomy borrowed from someone else.
- Decide what is a case and what is loose stock, and be consistent.
- Put a replacement value on everything as you go. Doing it later, item by item, is the job everyone regrets postponing.
- Reconcile quantities against what is physically on the shelf, not against what the old sheet claims.
- Retire the items you have not rented in two years rather than importing them.
What changes on the other side
The visible change is that quotes take minutes instead of an afternoon, because they are assembled from a catalog rather than typed.
The change that matters more is quieter. The approved quote becomes the job, so the warehouse prepares from what was actually sold, the crew are called against the same record, and the invoice inherits the pricing the client agreed to. The category of mistake where two documents disagree with each other stops being possible.
FAQ
Can we import our existing gear spreadsheet?
How do we run both systems during the change?
What if the team resists it?
Try it against a job you already ran
The fastest way to judge this is to rebuild one recent show and count what you had to retype. Start free, or bring the job to a walkthrough and we will trace it with you.