How to write a professional quotation in five minutes
Most quotations in circulation are a price table with no terms. The terms are what protect you in a dispute, and the tool above writes them for you.
Pick your line of business
Contracting, supply and install, services, maintenance or trade. The right clauses are selected for you — a contractor needs an exclusions clause, a trader needs a stock-availability clause.
Set how long the price holds
7–30 days is the commercial norm. Saudi government tenders require 90 days under the Government Tenders and Procurement Law. The expiry date is calculated and printed on the document.
Add the lines with units of measure
Description, quantity, unit (m², linear metre, each, hour, lump sum) and unit price. Units are essential to a bill of quantities, yet missing from almost every template in circulation.
Review the terms and download
Choose from the clause library — every clause is taken verbatim from a published Gulf quotation, with its source shown underneath. Then download a PDF with correctly shaped Arabic.
The most expensive mistake: not stating the VAT basis
If you quote a price without referring to VAT, the price is presumed to be VAT-inclusive. A quotation for SAR 10,000 with no VAT statement is read as SAR 10,000 including tax — and you have quietly given away about SAR 1,304 you meant to add on top.
ZATCA’s General VAT Guide is explicit that where a price is stated without reference to VAT, it is assumed to be VAT-inclusive. That is why this tool always prints an explicit sentence on the face of the quotation saying whether prices include or exclude VAT, rather than leaving it as a note you can forget.
A quotation is not a tax invoice
A quotation is a pre-sale commercial document and falls outside the e-invoicing perimeter, which covers invoices and credit and debit notes only — not quotations and not proforma invoices.
So a quotation produced here never carries a tax QR code and is never titled “tax invoice”. The document title is itself a regulated field, and putting “tax invoice” on something that is not one is not a cosmetic choice. When the client accepts, issue a tax invoice for the same lines.
What your terms and conditions should cover
The clause library is organised into eight groups: validity, prices and VAT, payment terms, delivery and execution, warranty, exclusions, governing law, and acceptance.
The most dangerous clause in a contracting quotation is exclusions. Many quotations silently leave out electrical, plumbing or waterproofing work, so the client pays a difference they never budgeted for — and that is where the dispute starts. Saying what is not included protects both sides.
- Validity period and expiry date
- Whether prices include or exclude VAT
- Payment terms and milestone payments
- Delivery or execution period and location
- Warranty, its length and its exclusions
- Work not covered by the quotation
- A client acceptance box with name, date and signature
Why the amount in words matters
In Saudi government tendering, the standard conditions booklet provides that where the written amount and the figure disagree, the written amount prevails. The words are the operative version.
The tool writes the amount out in Arabic automatically, following the actual grammar: the reverse gender agreement that numbers 3–10 take, and the singular, dual and plural forms of the currency. It also knows that the Omani rial and the Kuwaiti and Bahraini dinar divide into a thousand subunits, not a hundred.
Frequently asked questions
Does a quotation need a VAT number?
There is no legal requirement, because a quotation is not a tax document. Many businesses add one for commercial reasons, so the tool allows it without demanding it — a business not registered for VAT can legitimately issue a quotation.
How long should a quotation be valid?
Commercially, 7 to 30 days, with 30 the most common. In Saudi government competitions the validity of offers is ninety days from the date set for opening offers, under the Government Tenders and Procurement Law.
What is the difference between a quotation and a proforma invoice?
A quotation is issued during negotiation; a proforma is issued after terms are agreed, looks like an invoice, and usually exists to unlock a transfer or an internal approval. Neither is a tax document and neither is reported to the e-invoicing system.
Is my data uploaded to a server?
No. Everything runs in your browser: the arithmetic, the PDF, and the saved draft. Your client’s name, your prices and your deal size are never sent anywhere, and there is no sign-up or email required.
Can I turn the quotation into an invoice?
Yes. Use the “invoice” tab at the top of the form and the lines and client details carry across to the tax-invoice generator, on its own separate numbering series. Most accounting packages put this behind a paid plan.
This content is technical guidance and does not replace accounting or legal advice.