With only a few quotes a year, a messy archive goes unnoticed. As volumes grow, the absence of consistent numbering becomes a real obstacle: quotes you cannot find, duplicates under different names, no record of what went to whom and when.
Numbering that explains itself
A format containing the year and a sequential number, resetting each January, lets you see at a glance when a quote was created without opening the file. It is a simple convention, but only if applied to every quote without exceptions "just this once".
Status and traceability
Beyond the number, knowing what state each quote is in — draft, sent, accepted, declined — stops you losing the thread across dozens of open negotiations. Without that, the very real risk is forgetting an important follow-up simply because it appears on no list.
The benefit shows up later
The value of an orderly archive shows above all months or years later: when a customer rings about an old quote, when you need to compare historical margins by product category, when an adviser asks for a customer's commercial history. A numbered, consistent archive turns those requests into a formality instead of a laborious search.