Requests for quotation
Overview
A request goes to several suppliers and is then compared and awarded line by line. The list shows request, deadline, participating suppliers and status.
Awarding line by line is the point: one supplier is rarely the best at everything. Awarding a whole request to one means overpaying on half the lines.
Core tasks
Compare. Per line, the quotes appear with supplier, price, lead time in days and line value. The cheapest quote is marked.
Read the hint correctly. The application says it itself, plainly: "cheapest" is a hint — the ability to deliver and reliability appear in none of these figures. Awarding on price alone buys the supply bottleneck along with it.
Watch minimum quantities. Where the minimum order quantity exceeds the requirement, the line says so. The cheaper unit price can then cost more than the dearer one without the surplus.
Award and order. Award and order turns the awarded lines into draft purchase orders — one per supplier.
Send. Send really sends: every invited supplier gets their own mail with title, line list, deadline and note — never a shared distribution list that gives the competition away. The response names the result per supplier: sent, no e-mail address, suppressed or failed; whoever got no mail is contacted by hand. A mail problem does not hold the request back — from sending on, the lines are fixed. If you want to write yourself, set notifySuppliers to false; then only the state changes.
Import a quotation from a file. If the supplier sends a price list instead of a mail, Import quotation takes it over: a separated file (semicolon, tab or comma) with the columns line number, unit price, lead time in days, minimum quantity; a header row is allowed, and both 12,50 and 12.50 are read. A line number that does not exist in the request, or an unreadable price, is rejected with its line number — a half-imported quotation would look complete and be compared as such. The import runs through the same path as manual entry; a second quotation replaces the first.
Fields in detail
The What it does column answers what changes in the system — not what the field is called. The grey name behind the label is the API field: the same thing runs under that name through automation, import and AI tools.
Creating a request for quotation
| Field | Required | Values / format | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Title title | yes | text, max. 160 characters | What it is about. It becomes the subject of the request to the suppliers. |
Items items | yes | articles with quantity | What is asked for. Without a price — that is precisely what the supplier is meant to state. |
Suppliers supplierRoleIds | yes | several suppliers | Who is asked. They all get the same request; the answers later stand side by side and can be compared. |
Answer by dueDate | no | date | By when you expect an answer. It appears in the request and makes following up defensible. |
Note note | no | text | What the suppliers are additionally told — quality requirements, delivery terms, anything else. |
Brand brandId | no | one of your brands | Which brand is asking. |
From the cheapest or most suitable answer an order is created in one step — the items are carried over rather than retyped.
Settings & permissions
- Module
module.purchasing. purchasing.order.createfor the resulting orders.- Lines without a quote stay open. The display states explicitly that nobody has quoted yet.
- The deadline is a statement, not a lock. It structures the process; it does not prevent a late
award.
FAQ & troubleshooting
There is no quote for a line. Then no supplier bid on it. Follow up, or award the line separately.
The cheapest quote is not the best. Precisely why the hint is there. Lead time, minimum quantity and reliability belong in the decision.
After awarding, an order is missing. One order arises per supplier, not per line. Several lines to the same supplier land in one.
Can I withdraw an award? The resulting orders are drafts — carry on there rather than bending the request.