How long do you hold onto older estimates before clearing them out?

[Whale Rage Forever]

I generally store all documentation for the record, of course, but for how long do you generally hold an estimate in "pending" status before throwing it out and moving on from a customer that hasn't responded?

 

[Seven-Delta-FortyOne]

A lot depends on the size. Small service job or something, 30 days max. Thats when my proposals expire anyway, and I’ll have to requote it.

Larger remodels, I’ve had them hang around a year or more, but that’s just an estimate, not a bid.

A lot of times I’ll throw a ballpark at a customer for something, like a kitchen remodel, and then they have to go through selections, design, maybe engineering, and permitting, and that could take a year or more, but still be active.

 

[jaggedben]

Don't you have option to archive it somewhere? So it doesn't clutter your list but you can always come back to it for reference if the client comes back to you later?

 

[ptonsparky]

I'm retired and could probably find some if I took the time to look..

 

[petersonra]

I have a few customers I deal with that have capital appropriation cycles measured in multiple years sometimes. They get repriced if enough time has gone by but the sales dept can reprice it without my help. All of our stuff is electronic anyway so it is just a few pennies worth of storage space to hang on to it.