RFQs: asking vendors for prices

A request for quotation (RFQ) asks vendors for prices for the lines of a packet, by a due time.

Making an RFQ

From a packet: Make RFQ → check the due date and terms → Make RFQ. It gets the next number of your company's pattern (Settings → Numbering, e.g. RFQ/P1/2026-27/00001) and your standard terms (Settings → Terms), which you can change for this RFQ: price basis, delivery, payment, validity, documents asked.

Typing many lines

A new RFQ's lines, and the Add lines dialog of an open draft, take a sheet too: Fill from Excel. The columns are Type (Goods or Service; empty is goods), Material, Description, Quantity, Unit, HSN / SAC (written 7318.15.00 or 7318 15 00, it is read the same), Need by and Specification. A service is words with a SAC code starting 99 and has no material. Template gives you the sheet to fill in; choose your file and the page shows its rows like Excel. A cell in red says what is wrong: fix it there (or leave the row out) and press Check again. Use N lines puts the good rows into the form, after the lines you typed. Nothing is saved until you send the form. At most 50 lines at a time.

What each line asks

If your company keeps attributes about RFQ lines (Settings → Attributes), each line has an Attributes button: a grade, a size, a standard. A line made from a material starts with what the material holds, and you can change it for this RFQ without changing the material. Vendors read these beside the line's description: in the email, in the RFQ's PDF or letter, and in the quotation sheet. They can change until the RFQ goes to a vendor; after that, Amend the RFQ and the vendors are told what changed (giving the amendment up puts the values back).

Drawings and documents

The Documents card holds what vendors need to quote besides the RFQ itself: a drawing, a specification, terms. Add a document, say what it is (Drawing, Specification, Terms or Other), choose the file (PDF, a picture, Word, Excel, CSV or text, up to 20 MB) and, if you like, a note on what it is for ("Rev B, casing"). It is checked for viruses first, and a vendor sees it only once that is done. An RFQ takes up to 20.

Vendors open them from their own link: they are too big for an email, and every vendor gets the same set. The RFQ email names them, and the vendor's page lists them under Drawings and documents. If your company has switched the vendor's link off (Settings → Rules → RFQs, "Vendors may quote on a form by their own link"), the card says so: open each document there and send it another way.

Documents are part of what vendors quote on, so they change as the terms do: freely until the RFQ goes to a vendor, then only by Amend. In the amendment, add or take off documents; its email says "Document added: ..." or "Document taken out: ...", and giving the amendment up puts them as they were. While a reverse auction fixes the specification, they do not change.

Asking vendors

On the RFQ: Ask a vendor →

• Your vendors: approved vendors; those who supplied the same materials before come first.
• Candidates: a vendor not yet in your list can be asked too; adding it to your vendors comes later.

How the RFQ reaches them is your company's rule (Settings → Rules → RFQ email), one of:

Emails go from your own mailbox (connect it under Email), so vendors reply to you, and SourcePro files the replies against the RFQ.

While it is open

• Reminders go to vendors who have not answered, the company's number of days before the due time.
• Questions from vendors are answered once, and the answer goes to every vendor asked (no one gets an advantage).
• Amend the RFQ (a quantity, a date, a term): every vendor asked is told, and quotations already in are marked to be confirmed again.
• Extend the due time, with a reason.
• Hand over the RFQ to another buyer.
• A vendor's quotation you do not accept is rejected with a reason (see Quotations): the vendor's row says Quotation rejected, who rejected it and why, and it is out of the comparison until you reinstate it or enter its next quotation.

Ending it

• When quotations are in: compare and award (see Comparative statement and award).
• Withdraw or Cancel with a reason: the vendors are told, and the lines go back to be bought another way.
• An RFQ short of quotations (fewer than your rule's number of acceptable ones) is flagged, and the approvers see it.