On the contrary - if it is indexed and you want to find what was done in a particular year, then fine. But if you are looking for a quote number and don't know the year, then you cannot use indexing so all searches will be slow for any significant amount of records (say 10k+). Reason is to find a specific quote you need to use 'like '* quotenum *'. The use of the initial * precluded the use of indexing.
Further, a string index (which this would be) is much larger than the equivalent numeric index - so fewer records can be examined 'at the same time', slowing it further.
Listen to the advice given, build a good app by following good principles, or a bad one because that's the way you want it. Your choice
You might find this link helpful regarding indexing
https://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/threads/why-indexing-is-important-for-good-performance.291268/