A real catalogue
Ten metal types against seven shapes, down to wall thickness and length. Buyers find the exact spec instead of describing it and waiting.
Patton’s Corp Steel Quote Portal: Replacing Google Sheets Quoting
Case study · Custom systems
Patton’s Corp quoted steel out of Google Sheets, copying data between systems and emailing every quote by hand. We replaced it with one portal: a full catalogue, one-click quoting, and customer accounts where buyers track their own quotes and order history.
ClientPatton’s Corp
IndustrySteel service centre
LocationOntario, California
What we builtCatalogue and quote portal
10Metal types in the catalogue
7Shape categories, cross-indexed
1 hrQuote turnaround Patton’s publishes
What quoting looked like before
Steel quoting breaks in a predictable way.
The product data lives in one place. The customer list lives in another. The quote itself gets built in a spreadsheet, pasted into an email, and then exists nowhere except that email. The customer asks for a change. Now there are two versions, and nobody is certain which one is current.
That is not a spreadsheet problem. It is a problem of the quote having no home.
Every revision meant re-keying numbers. Every status question — where is my quote, did you get my change, what did we price this at last time — meant someone stopping work to go and look.
Recognise your own process in that? We’ll show you what the fix looks like, built for your business, free.
What we built
One system, replacing the sheets, the copying between tools, and the email thread.
Quoting in one click
Built in the system, sent from the system. Update a quote and it reaches the customer automatically — one version, always current.
Customer accounts
Quotes, status, full history, order tracking and documents — so buyers answer their own questions instead of calling.
A real catalogue, not a contact form
The portal carries Patton’s inventory at the level a buyer actually orders it: aluminum, cold roll, hot roll, galvanized, stainless, expanded metal, pipes, AR plate 400/500, chromoly/DOM tubing and roofing panels — cross-indexed against angle, channel, beams, bars, pipes, tubes, and sheets and plates.
Every item carries its real dimensions. Aluminum tubing alone runs to 66 line items, each with wall thickness and length, from 1/2″ x 1/2″ x .065 square up to 3″ x 5″ rectangular.
There are no prices on the catalogue, and that is deliberate. Steel moves with the market. A published price is either stale or a liability. So every item has an Add to Quote button instead, and the price comes back from a person who knows what the material costs today.
How a quote moves through it
Browse the catalogue by metal or shape
Add items to a quote at exact spec
Patton’s prices it and sends in one click
Customer accepts online
Order tracked through to delivery
Patton’s publishes a commitment on the portal: quotes and orders processed within one hour during business hours. That is the standard the system was built to support.
Before and after
Before
- Quotes built in Google Sheets
- Sent manually by email
- Revisions re-keyed by hand
- Multiple versions in circulation
- Data spread across disconnected systems
- Status questions answered by a person
- Reorders started from scratch
After
- Quotes built in the portal
- Sent in one click, delivered automatically
- Updated in place
- One current version, always
- One system end to end
- Customers check status themselves
- Reorders rebuilt from account history
Want to see your own site rebuilt this way? We’ll design it first and charge you nothing for the look.
Why this matters beyond steel
Most companies that quote custom work have the same shape of problem. The catalogue is in one system, the pricing logic is in someone’s head or a spreadsheet, and the quote dies in an email thread.
The cost is not the software. It is the hours spent re-keying, chasing versions, and answering questions the customer could have answered themselves.
Common questions
Why doesn’t the portal show prices?
Material costs move. A published price on a steel catalogue is either out of date or a commitment the company cannot honour. Add-to-Quote keeps the catalogue accurate and puts the number in the hands of someone who knows today’s cost.
Can customers see quotes from months ago?
Yes. Quote history, order records and documents sit in the customer’s account and stay there.
Does a system like this replace the sales team?
No. It removes the re-keying and the status chasing so the team spends its time pricing and selling. The quote still comes from a person.
How long does a build like this take?
It depends on how clean the product data is. The catalogue is usually the long pole, not the software — if your specs live in a spreadsheet someone maintains, you are further along than you think.
Do you build these for other companies?
Yes. If your quoting runs on spreadsheets and email, the problem is usually the same one, and it is worth an honest conversation about whether a system like this would pay for itself in your business.
See your new homepage before you pay us anything
Send us your site and we’ll design a new homepage for it — free, no obligation, nothing to cancel. We do it because roughly half the businesses we show a mockup to end up hiring us, so we treat it as a sales cost worth absorbing.
And if your real problem turns out to be the quoting, the spreadsheets or the back office rather than the website, we’ll tell you that instead.
No contract, no card, no pitch deck. One designer, one homepage, yours to keep.
The Clay Media has built websites and custom systems for Southern California businesses since 2009. See more case studies.