Catching Up With Quotes & Admin After Setting Up Events All Day?

About ten years ago, a conversation with an event rental business owner became the reason GoodEvent exists.

He was working 15-hour days — erecting tents all day, driving home, then sitting at a computer until midnight following up on every enquiry that had come in while he was on site. Up again at 6am. Back on the road.

His question was simple: why can't I just go to the van, once the lads know what they're doing, and finish the admin from there?

That question is the reason every GoodEvent tool is built to work on any device, anywhere, with minimal signal. Not because it's a nice feature to mention — because the alternative is event hire company owners giving up their evenings to do work that should have been done in the van.

Here's what building and sending three different quotes looks like from a car park on 4G.

Quote One: Enquiry From the Website Shopfront

The first enquiry has come through the online shopfront — a quote builder that sits on your website and lets clients configure their own quote from your available hire items and packages. The client has already selected what they want and indicated they're ready to book.

The enquiry feeds straight into GoodEvent Business. The stock check runs automatically: in this case, the 5'6" round tables the client requested flag as unavailable — someone has already booked 13 of them, there are only 10 in stock, leaving a shortfall of three.

The Stock Problem Caught Before the Call

This is what prevents the most damaging kind of mistake in hire businesses: confirming a booking for stock you don't have. Without live stock checking at the quote stage, the shortfall only becomes visible when the lorry is being loaded. With it, you see the problem on the enquiry screen before you've called the client back.

The fix takes 30 seconds. Switch to a different table type — rustic round tables, 63 available — drag them into the quote, delete the out-of-stock item, confirm the booking, create the deposit invoice, send it to the client with one click. The client has a professional quote, a deposit request, and a confirmed booking. All of it from a phone in a car park.

For businesses running multiple warehouses, the same stock check shows availability by location. If the main warehouse is short, switch to Bristol, transfer the stock, and the quote reflects the right source.

“Tracking stock, orders and availability of kit remotely has made our quoting much more efficient. The software has allowed us to say yes to more jobs, taking a lot less time to plan and organise.”

— Margaret, North Down Marquees

Quote Two: Enquiry From the Contact Form

The second enquiry has come through a contact form linked to the website. It's from Sarah. She's uploaded a photo of her garden, noted it's 15 by 30 metres, says she wants to book soon, and the event is for 120 guests.

What the Enquiry Screen Tells You Before You Build Anything

GoodEvent Business shows key information on the enquiry view before you've touched the quote. In this case: 120 guests, the job site is one mile away, and there's only one other booking on that weekend. Availability confirmed. Worth pursuing.

Rather than building from scratch, open the sample quotes library and select the pre-built package for 120 guests — a 9 by 27 metre tent with chairs and tables. The quote is built in seconds. Adjust quantities if needed, open the client dashboard view to check how the quote will look when it arrives in the client's inbox, and send.

Sample Quotes Are the Most Underused Time-Saver in the Tool

Most event hire businesses treat every job as completely bespoke. And the finished quote often is. But the starting point — the tent, the floor, the standard furniture configuration for a given guest count — is usually the same. A sample quote captures that starting point. When an enquiry comes in, selecting the right sample quote and customising from there takes two minutes. Building from scratch takes twenty.

The client receives a branded email with their name, a link to the interactive quote dashboard, photos of every hire item, optional extras they can browse, and a button to book. No PDF. No attachment that goes into a folder and never gets opened. A live portal they can share with their partner, their venue, their wedding planner.

“Instead of typing out every single quote and invoice like we used to do, we now simply have to click on a premade sample quote, add any extra and that's it we're done.”

— Rachel & Seb, Silverback Stretch Tents

Quote Three: Built From Scratch for a Furniture Rental Job

The third quote is a straightforward furniture rental job — no existing enquiry to work from, just a client conversation that needs a quote. Start a new quote, add the event date and postcode if available, and begin adding items.

The quote builder in GoodEvent Business is designed for speed. Stock issues flag as you add items — if something isn't available on the date you've entered, you see it immediately rather than at confirmation. Items get added, quantities updated, and the quote is built in a few clicks.

Client Messaging Directly Through the Quote

For this client, enable the customer chat feature. Type a message — in this case, “Let us know your thoughts. We're booking up quick.” — and send.

The client receives an email with a link that takes them directly to the quote and the message. They can reply without creating an account or logging into anything. The conversation is attached to the quote. The quote, the messages, and any responses all live in the same place, linked to the booking.

This matters because it removes the most common breakdown in the quoting process: the client replies to the quote by email, the conversation fragments across threads, context gets lost, someone asks a question that was already answered three messages ago. With messaging built into the quote, the whole conversation is always visible against the job.

“Creating and editing a quote in minutes while the client is still on the phone is definitely a huge deal for us and makes us stand out from the crowd.”

— Mica, Ohana Marquees

Three Quotes. One Car Park. Minimal Signal.

A website shopfront enquiry with a stock conflict resolved and a deposit invoice sent. A sample quote built in seconds for a 120-guest garden wedding. A furniture rental quote built from scratch with a follow-up message attached. All of it done from a laptop on 4G hotspot in a supermarket car park.

This isn't a demonstration of an edge case. This is what GoodEvent Business is built for — the reality of running an event hire company where the office time is limited, the site time is unpredictable, and the enquiries don't stop coming because you're on a job.

What Event Hire Companies Are Replacing

Most event hire businesses build quotes in one of three ways before GoodEvent Business: a spreadsheet that needs updating every time stock changes, a PDF template that gets manually adjusted for each client, or a more generic business software that wasn't built with hire stock, component tracking, or event-specific packages in mind.

Each of these has the same problem: they need a desk, a proper internet connection, and uninterrupted time to use properly. They don't work well from a van. They don't flag stock conflicts automatically. They don't produce a branded interactive portal the client can access from their phone.

The result is quoting that happens after hours, after the site work is done, because there's no other way to do it properly. GoodEvent Business is the specific fix for that specific problem.

“Today I had 3 site visits. During each site visit, I used my phone to make changes to the customer's quote. In minutes the quote was perfect for their event and all 3 customers paid the deposit there and then! Before Good Event it could take us days or weeks to get clients to pay after their site visit.”

— Rhys & Tedd, Alpha Hire

For Any Event Hire Business, Not Just Marquees

GoodEvent Business works for any hire business that needs to quote from a catalogue of items, check availability, and send a professional client-facing proposal.

Marquee hire, furniture rental, AV and technical equipment, flooring, staging, generators, portable toilets, props, party hire — if the business takes hire enquiries and sends quotes, the tool fits.

The stock management system — live availability, component tracking, multi-warehouse — is built for the complexity of hire stock rather than generic inventory. The quote builder produces a client experience that reflects how people actually browse and buy today: on a phone, interactive, with photos, with a payment button.

Getting Started

Free trial at goodevent.com/products/business. No setup fee. Most businesses are sending their first quote within the same day they sign up.

For floor plans that connect to the quote, see GoodEvent Layout. For crew time tracking and scheduling that links to the same job data, see GoodEvent Time. For site planning maps shared with clients and suppliers, see GoodEvent Maps.