The difference between knowing where you’ve been and seeing where you’re heading.
Ask most window and door business owners about their profit margins, and they’ll probably tell you about last month’s figures. But what if you could see next month’s potential profit before you’ve even received the orders?
That’s exactly what integrate does differently. Instead of waiting for your accountant to tell you how you performed, integrate gives you the visibility to understand your projected profitability in real-time. It’s the difference between driving while looking in the rear-view mirror and actually seeing the road ahead.
Real-time profit visibility
When you create a quote in integrate, you’re putting together a price for your customer, but you’re also helping your business plan ahead. integrate instantly shows you the projected production cost alongside the quoted price, giving you an immediate view of your expected profit margin on every single job.
This isn’t complicated financial wizardry. It’s straightforward: here’s what it costs to make, here’s what you’re charging, here’s your margin. Simple.
The Price Breakdown feature takes this even further, showing you the granular cost of each element – timber costs, labour costs, hardware, and everything else that goes into your quote. You can even see the breakdown for individual items, complete with cost, selling price, and markup.
No more guessing whether that bespoke casement window is actually profitable or just expensive.
What your quote could look like with integrateCONNECT
From quotes to strategic decisions
Here’s where it gets interesting for growing businesses. The Quote List function lets you view all quotes over any given period, showing both price and cost data. Export this information to a CSV or Excel file and you can calculate your overall quoted margin for that timeframe.
But this isn’t just about numbers in a spreadsheet. You can filter by job type, salesperson, customer type – whatever makes sense for your business. Suddenly you can see exactly which types of quotes deliver the best potential returns. Maybe your conservation work has higher margins than your new-build projects. Maybe certain sales team members consistently quote more profitably.
The data tells the story.
As one of our customers puts it in practice: they regularly email us asking for very specific pricing adjustments – “add £50 to fit this type of frame” or “adjust the labour cost for that particular glazing specification.” They know exactly which elements of their pricing need tweaking because they can see the breakdown instantly.
Fig 1. Quote list function in integrate, Fig 2. Quote list data exported to CSV with added calculations
Why this matters for growing window and door companies
Growing businesses in our industry face a very particular challenge.
When you’re small, you might personally oversee every quote and know instinctively which jobs are worth pursuing. But as you scale, that personal oversight becomes impossible. You need systems that give you the same insight across dozens or hundreds of quotes.
integrate helps you identify the types of jobs with the greatest potential returns. Instead of chasing every enquiry, you can focus your energy on the work that genuinely grows your business profitably.
For example, say your Quote List shows you’ve got £200,000 worth of potential orders this month with a projected profit of £60,000. That’s useful information. But when you can filter data and discover your heritage restoration quotes have 35% margins while your commercial work only delivers 12%, you’ve got actionable intelligence.
Connecting projections to reality
Of course, projecting profit is only half the story.
The real power comes when you connect these projections to what actually happens. This is where integrate’s integration with accounting tools like Xero becomes crucial.
You can see your projected margins when you quote, track which quotes convert to orders, and then monitor payments as work progresses. Maybe your biggest potential profit comes from commercial jobs, but you’re receiving more orders from domestic customers. That’s valuable insight that shapes your marketing and sales strategy.
The system bridges the gap between “what we think we’ll make” and “what we actually made,” giving you the data to refine your pricing and improve your processes continuously.
Understanding financial data
One concern we often hear is: “This sounds great, but I’m not an accountant. Will I actually understand any of this?”
The beauty of integrate’s approach is its simplicity. You don’t need a finance degree to understand that a job costing £2,000 to produce and quoted at £3,000 gives you a £1,000 margin. The system presents this information clearly, without jargon or complicated formulas.
The Price Breakdown shows costs and margins in plain terms. The Quote List presents data in a format that makes sense to anyone who’s ever run a business. And because you can export the data, you can work with it in whatever way suits your thinking style.
The bottom line
If we had to sum up the value of integrate’s profit prediction capabilities in one sentence, it would be this: integrate transforms your quoting process from hopeful guesswork into strategic decision-making, giving you the visibility to focus on profitable work before you commit your time and resources.
It’s not about making you an accountant. It’s about giving you the information you need to make better business decisions. Whether you’re adjusting prices, prioritising certain types of work, or planning your growth strategy, having accurate profit projections changes everything.
After all, turnover might make headlines, but profit pays the bills. integrate helps you see both where your profit has been and, more importantly, where it’s going to come from next.