The Copy Document feature in Business Central makes it easy to create a variation of an existing sales quote – instead of rebuilding from scratch, pull in the previous lines and adjust what needs to change. This guide covers how to copy a sales quote into a new one, including how the pricing and recalculation options work.
Why Copy a Sales Quote Instead of Starting Over
A common situation: a customer liked a previous sales quote but wants a few changes. They are not sure which version they will choose, so they want the original kept open and a new one created with the adjustments. The slow way is to open a blank quote and retype every line. The faster way is to use Copy Document.
Copy Document in Business Central lets you create a new sales quote from an existing one in a few clicks. The items and prices from the original come in right away. From there, you make only the changes the customer asked for. So the effort goes toward reviewing and adjusting, not retyping from scratch.
Additionally, this same approach works across other document types. You can copy a sales order to a new sales order, or a sales invoice to a new one. The steps and the dialog are the same. So once you learn it on quotes, the skill transfers directly to the rest of the sales flow.
Overall, the Copy Document action is one of the most broadly useful tools in Business Central for sales documents. Instead of going through lines one by one, you get a fully populated document in seconds. Notably, the original document stays open and untouched the whole time.
Creating a New Sales Quote to Copy Into
To start, open the Sales Quotes page in Business Central. If it is not in your Role Center, search for it and you will find it there. Then click New to open a blank document.
Next, select the customer in the Sell-to Customer field. Business Central fills in the customer details from the card. After that, do not add lines manually. Instead, go straight to the Prepare menu in the ribbon. There you find the Copy Document action.
Click Copy Document and the dialog opens. Business Central remembers the last settings used, so the dialog may already show the document type and number from a previous run. In particular, check the Document Type field before you proceed – make sure it is set to the type you want.
Using the Copy Document Dialog for a Sales Quote
Selecting the Source Document
In the dialog, set Document Type to Quote. Then use the lookup on Document No. to find the original sales quote you want to copy from. The list shows open quotes for the customer. Filter by customer to narrow the results, then select the right one and close the lookup.
In this example, the customer is Alpine Ski House. The quote they want to build on is their most recent one. After selecting it, the document number fills in the dialog automatically. Now set the two checkboxes before clicking OK.
Include Header and Recalculate Lines
The Include Header checkbox controls whether the top section of the source document – the customer details, currency, and payment terms – copies across to the new document. In most cases, leave it unchecked. The new document already has the customer set. Furthermore, you may want to adjust those header fields on your own.
The Recalculate Lines checkbox controls whether Business Central updates prices on the copied lines to match the current price list. If time has passed since the original quote and prices have changed, checking this box brings in the latest prices. However, if you want to match the original quote exactly – because the customer is comparing both versions – leave it unchecked. In this example, the goal is to keep the original prices and add small changes, so this box stays off.
Once both options are set, click OK. Business Central runs the copy and the new document opens right away.
What You Get After Clicking OK
After clicking OK, all the lines from the original sales quote appear on the new document. Items, amounts, and prices come across as they were. From here, you add the new items, adjust the lines the customer wants changed, and the new quote is ready to send. Specifically, the original quote stays open in the system at the same time – it is not removed or changed.
Furthermore, both quotes now exist in the system at the same time. The customer can compare them side by side and choose the one that works best. Business Central keeps them separate, each with its own document number. So there is no confusion about which one is which.
The time saved grows with the length of the original quote. On a one-line quote, the benefit is modest. On a longer quote with many items, different discounts, and varied amounts, Copy Document can cut the setup time from minutes to seconds. Indeed, that is where this feature pays off most clearly.
When to Use Copy Document for a Sales Quote
Copy Document works best when the new quote shares most of its content with the original. If the customer wants the same items with one or two changes, this is the right tool. Conversely, if the new quote is completely different – new items, new amounts, new structure – starting fresh may be faster than adjusting every line.
Additionally, Copy Document is useful when you want to send a revised quote without losing the original. The original sales quote stays in the system with its own number and history. So if the customer comes back to the earlier version later, you can find it right away.
Moreover, this feature helps when you need to create a similar quote for a different customer. Open a new quote, select the new customer, then use Copy Document to bring in the lines from a past quote. After that, adjust prices and items as needed for the new customer. In short, the feature is flexible enough to handle more than just same-customer revisions.
Wrapping Up: Copy a Sales Quote Faster in Business Central
When a customer wants a new sales quote based on a previous one, Copy Document is the right tool. It brings in the lines in seconds, keeps the original open, and lets you make only the changes that are needed. Overall, this saves time and reduces the risk of errors from retyping a long list of items.
In short, the faster you can respond to a customer with a revised quote, the better. Copy Document in Business Central makes that possible without extra manual effort. Moreover, the same feature works on sales orders and invoices – so the time you save on quoting extends across the entire sales process. Once you use it for quotes, it becomes the default approach for any document that repeats familiar lines.
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