Quotations: entering, confirming and checking them

A quotation is one vendor's answer to an RFQ: a price per line (or "not quoted"), taxes, charges, and its terms.

Getting quotations in

• From an email: the vendor replies to your RFQ email. Open the RFQ → the vendor → Enter quotation: SourcePro shows the vendor's file beside the form. Type the prices, received date, price basis, validity, payment and delivery terms.
• The quotation sheet: the Excel sheet sent with the RFQ, filled in by the vendor, can be uploaded: its prices fill the form, to check before confirming.
• A PDF, a photo or a file from the vendor, read by AI: where your company has AI on, a Read with AI button sits beside the vendor's file. The AI writes down what the file says; SourcePro then matches each row to an RFQ line by its words, its material code, its quantity and its unit, and fills the form. It never confirms for you and it never guesses: a row that could be two lines, a price in another unit, a quotation in another currency or a number it cannot read is left out and named above the form. AI can be wrong: check every figure against the file before you confirm. A file read once is not read again. Your company admin can turn it off and limit the pages read under Settings → Rules.
• From the email, by itself: when a vendor replies with its quotation as a PDF, a photo or a file and your company has AI on, SourcePro reads the file into a draft as soon as the reply is read in your mailbox, and tells you on the bell to check it. The reply on the RFQ page says what became of its file: Read with Open the draft, or Not read with the reason (for example, a quotation of that vendor is already open with figures in it: it never writes over it). Where the reason may have passed (AI was off, your company's credits were used up, AI was away), Read again on the reply tries once more. The Excel sheet SourcePro sent is read by its own rules, without AI; a sheet with no prices in it is skipped. It is only a draft: check every figure against the file, then confirm. Your company admin can turn this off under Settings → Rules (AI reads a vendor's emailed file into a draft by itself when the reply arrives), and you can still press Read with AI yourself.
• By phone: enter what was agreed and save it as by phone. It counts as awaiting the vendor's written confirmation: ask for it (a link by email), or it lapses after the company's number of days.
• By the vendor itself: a link lets the vendor enter its own prices, after a code sent to its email.

Drafts and confirming

A quotation is a draft until you Confirm it: only confirmed quotations go into the comparison. A confirmed quotation is not edited: when the vendor sends new prices (after a negotiation), enter a new version; the comparison shows the first and the final price.

A price far from what you know: as you type a price, SourcePro compares it with the last price your company paid for the material and with the middle of what the other vendors quoted on the line, and says so under the price (for example *900% above the last price paid, ₹41.50 per M*). A price many times higher or lower (a missed zero, a price per 100 typed as per one) is marked as a possible slip, and Confirm asks you to look once more: go back, or confirm it as typed. It never stops you: a price may be right. Only you see it, never the vendor. Your company admin can turn it off or change how far is far under Settings → Rules (Point out a typed price that is far from what the company knows).

Late? A quotation received after the due time needs a reason to be accepted.

Alternatives: a vendor may offer another make or size for a line: enter it as an alternative beside the line asked.

What the vendor answers: if your company keeps attributes about quotation lines (Settings → Attributes), each quoted line asks for them under its price: a heat number, the grade offered. They start empty, are saved with the draft, and a new version starts with what the last one held. Once confirmed they are fixed with the rest of the quotation. Your admin can require an answer (Settings → Attributes → *Required when a quotation is confirmed*): a quoted line without it cannot be confirmed, and a vendor quoting by its link cannot send. A vendor quoting by its link is asked them on its own form. A certificate (a file attribute) is answered by choosing one of the quotation's files: add the file first, then choose it on the line. The Excel sheet sent with the RFQ has a column for each of these, and a quotation read by AI (QuotationScan) is checked the same way: an answer an attribute cannot hold is left out and said in the notes, and you complete it by hand.

Rejecting a quotation

A confirmed quotation you do not accept (it does not meet the specification, it quotes a make you do not use) is rejected, with a reason: open the quotation → Reject quotation → say why. SourcePro keeps who rejected it, when and why, on the quotation, in the vendor's history on the RFQ and in the audit trail.

• The vendor leaves the comparison: it is not ranked, not counted among the quotations the RFQ has, and the comparative statement and the award's approvers read a note naming it, with your reason. The reason stays inside your company: the vendor is never told why. Its link says only that the buyer did not accept the quotation, and it cannot send another by itself: you decide whether it quotes again.
• It can be reinstated, with a reason, while the RFQ is open and the vendor has no other version being entered, awaiting its confirmation or counting. If the vendor quotes again (you enter its next quotation), the new one counts and the rejected one stays on record.
• A rejection is refused when the RFQ is awarded (withdraw the award first), when the vendor's lines are on a PO that stands (cancel or decline the PO first), while a reverse auction is with the approvers or running, and for a quotation the vendor sent by its link that your company seals until the due time (it is not looked at yet).
• A vendor with a quotation on record cannot be removed from the RFQ; you can still withdraw it.

Technical verdicts

Before an award, each quotation's lines are acceptable or not acceptable technically, with a reason. Technical verdicts → Mark all acceptable → Save verdicts, or line by line. When a material needs a technical review, a Technical reviewer gives the verdicts (they are asked by the bell and email).