Quote documents that assemble themselves and come back signed

The quote PDF is the one document every buyer reads, and in most companies it is still assembled by hand. A rep exports numbers into a word processor, pastes in last year's logo, forgets to swap the terms for the region, and sends a document that shows cost to a customer who should never see it. Localizing it doubles the work, and getting it signed means a separate e-signature tool that never tells the quote what happened.

The cost shows up as slow turnaround, off-brand documents, the occasional leaked margin, and deals that sit unsigned because nobody could see the envelope was never opened.

A document template is the design behind a generated PDF: the quote itself, an order acknowledgment, a statement of work. It is built visually, block by block, and merge fields pull live data from the quote at the moment the document is rendered.

Blocks are the building units. There are ten: text, label and value, line items, tax, signature, divider, spacer, image, page break, and document slot. The line items block repeats, one row per quote line, with the columns you choose. The signature block marks where a DocuSign signer's signature, initials, date, name, and title land. A document slot is where a library document, such as terms and conditions, is inserted.

Layout is a 12-column grid. Each block has a span from 1 to 12, so two blocks of span 6 sit side by side, and a row that exceeds 12 is rejected on save. Each template also carries its own look: colors, rule weights, page margin, and base type size.

Conditions are set per block. A block is shown always, only when an expression is true, or unless it is true. The expression can read the same quote, customer, contact, address, terms, and compliance fields as merge fields, is limited to 1,000 characters, and is checked for valid syntax and field references on save.

Merge fields are tokens such as {{quote.quoteNumber}} or {{customer.name}}. Prefixes cover the quote, the customer, customer addresses by type (bill to, ship to, quote to), the selected contact, commercial terms, and compliance fields such as tax ID. Any custom field you have defined appears under its parent prefix by its key. Text can be wrapped in a conditional so a paragraph appears only when a field has a value, and the editor lists every available field.

The output tab on each quote decides how that quote renders: the template (or the one marked as default), the page orientation, the output profile, the language, and seven print flags for tax, totals, discounts, summary, logo, margin, and cost. Out of the box, tax and cost are off and the other five are on, so an unedited quote never shows cost to a buyer.

The document library holds the reusable pieces: logos and images as PNG, JPEG, or WebP up to 10 MB each, and PDF source documents up to 50 MB each. Every asset can be tagged with a role, category, language, region, country, product tag, and product family, and carries one variant per language; at render time the platform uses the variant matching the quote's language and falls back to the asset's own file when there is none. Update a file once and every template that references it picks up the change.

Document rules decide which library documents go into which slots. A rule is a condition, a document role, a target slot, and a priority. The condition is evaluated on the server against the quote's facts: line count, categories, product families, product tags, part numbers, net total, discounts, and the customer's country. When a rule fires, the platform picks the best asset with that role, scoring matches on country, language, region, category, product family, and product tag, with priority and the default flag as tie-breakers. A rep can still fill a slot by hand from the library or from a file attached to the quote.

Translation happens at render time. Templates are written once, in English. If the quote's language is not English, every text block, label, line-item header, and tax and totals label is sent to an external translation service, with merge tokens protected so the translator never alters them. The output profile is a short instruction that tells the translator what kind of document it is working on. Thirteen languages are mapped, from German and French to Japanese and Chinese. Translation requires a platform-level key; without it, the document renders in English whatever language the quote selects.

Signing goes through DocuSign, from the quote. The rep chooses a generated quote PDF, adds signers on the company side and the customer side, picks a signing flow, previews the document with signer details in place, and sends. The envelope's status comes back to the quote: sent, delivered, signed, declined, or voided, and status only moves forward.

• Visual template builder. Drag blocks onto a canvas that mirrors the page: a header band, body sections, and a footer band. Set each block's span and its show or hide condition. Saving validates every expression and field reference.
• Library and lookups. Define the lookup values your documents are organized by, upload assets, tag them, and add language variants from the asset's detail page.
• Document rules. Write the condition, choose the role and the target slot, set a priority, and switch the rule on. The higher priority wins when several rules fire for the same slot.
• Matt, the Neblex AI Assistant. Ask Matt how to express a document condition and it explains the syntax or drafts the expression for you to review and paste in. Matt advises and drafts; it never saves or changes a template.
• DocuSign setup. An administrator enters the DocuSign account ID, integration key, user account, and private key under settings, chooses the demo or production environment, and completes a one-time consent. The feature must also be included in your plan.

• Ten block types: text, label and value, line items, tax, signature, divider, spacer, image, page break, and document slot
• A 12-column grid with spans from 1 to 12 and a row limit enforced on save
• Per-block visibility: always, when, or unless an expression is true
• Merge fields for quote, customer, addresses, contact, terms, compliance, and custom fields, with conditional text inside a block
• One default template, with a per-quote override, orientation, and language on the output tab
• Seven print flags per quote, with tax and cost off by default
• A document library for logos and images up to 10 MB and PDF documents up to 50 MB
• Seven lookup dimensions for assets: role, category, language, region, country, product tag, and product family
• Rule-driven document selection by role and slot, scored on country, language, region, category, product family, and product tag
• Slots that can be required, restricted by category or role, capped, and placed inline, before, or after a section
• Translation into 13 mapped languages with merge tokens protected, plus an output profile that gives the translator context
• DocuSign envelopes with 1 to 20 recipients, each on the company or customer side, as a signer or a copy recipient
• Three signing flows: company first, customer first, or simultaneous
• Up to 10 supplemental PDFs from the library per envelope, each set to view, initial every page, initial the last page, or information only
• The signed PDF downloaded from the quote and kept in your storage against the envelope

One template serves every proposal from an imaging-equipment maker; here is how a quote for a hospital in Munich comes out.

1. 1The rep opens the output tab. The default template is already selected. The rep sets the language to German, picks the "clinical proposal" output profile, and leaves the print flags at their defaults, so cost and tax stay off.
2. 2The header fills itself. An image block prints the logo from the library, a label and value block prints the quote number and valid-until date, and a text block prints the bill-to address.
3. 3A conditional paragraph appears. A text block is set to show only when the customer's VAT number has a value. This hospital has one, so the compliance paragraph prints; for a customer without one, the block collapses.
4. 4A document rule attaches the right terms. A rule that checks for a medical category and a ship-to country of DE targets the terms slot with the role "terms", and the asset tagged Germany beats the generic European one because a country match outscores a region match.
5. 5Datasheets follow the products. A second rule targets the datasheet slot, which allows multiple documents and is limited to the "datasheet" category, so a brochure with the same product tag cannot slip in.
6. 6The German variant is used. The terms asset has a German variant, so that file is spliced in; the datasheet exists only in English, so its own file is used rather than leaving the slot empty.
7. 7The template is translated. Every text block, label, and line-item header goes through the translation service with the clinical-proposal instruction attached. The token {{quote.totalPrice}} is protected, so the number lands untouched in the translated sentence.
8. 8The rep sends for signature. The rep adds the sales director on the company side and the procurement lead on the customer side, chooses customer first, attaches the German terms as a supplemental document set to initial the last page, previews, and sends. The quote shows sent, then delivered, then signed, and the signed PDF is downloaded from the quote.

Before the template went live, a condition that referred to a field that did not exist was rejected on save with the offending reference named, caught in the builder rather than on a customer's desk.