title: What exactly is the sales_flat_quote used for?
body: <p>I am a newbie in magento. I understand that when a customer adds something into his cart, all the details regarding the product and customer gets stored into the quote. Why is it necessary to create a quote for an order?</p>
  
  <p>Also I have a script for placing an order programmatically, in which I don't create a quote for the product ordered. Am I making a mistake here without creating a quote? What are the uses of doing so?</p>