Companies that procure materials on a need-to-basis initiate a sourcing activity to purchase goods or services at the best price. In the process of sourcing, purchase teams request for quotes from multiple suppliers and pick the best quote depending on various parameters.
A request for quote is the sourcing activity where the customer receives multiple quotes from different suppliers on their portal. Evaluating all the submitted one’s and picking the best one in terms of quality, price, delivery time, & reviews is done by the customer.
As a supplier on the Aerchain portal, viewing customer requests (RFQs) and submitting quotes for each RFQ raised is simple.
Features offered in the RFQ module:
Towards the left, there is a panel with the list of all modules, click on the RFQ module to go to the RFQ listings page.
Searching for a quote request : Enter the RFQ code, subject, customer name, etc. a list of RFQs containing that keyword will appear (Refer the image above-1)
Date Filter: For better visibility, click on the "Date filter” and select the start-date and end-date to list all requests for quotes raised between the defined dates (Refer the image above-2)
Status Cards: The counter for each tab on top of the table displays how many quote requests are pending, quoted, negotiated and converted
Filter RFQs: There are filters for every column like customer, purchaser, subjects or deadline that a supplier can use to find particular quote(s) instantly like shown below
For each quote, the following information is displayed in the RFQ module:
RFQ Code: A unique code is assigned to every quote request raised by the customer which is displayed on the supplier portal (Ex:RFQ-C1-21-835)
Date: The date at which the quote has been requested by the customer.
Customer: It displays the name of the customer that raised the RFQ.
Purchaser: The purchaser's name from the customer’s company that requesting the RFQ
Subject: Short information that explains the essence of the RFQ was raised
Deadline: The last date that the supplier needs to submit their quotation. There are two types of deadlines that the supplier must be aware of:
Soft deadline: The supplier is allowed to submit their quotation even after the deadline has expired
Hard deadline: The supplier is not allowed to submit their quote after the deadline has expired.
Status: Suppliers can track all the RFQs current status and is displayed with shows the status of the quote as explained below
- Converted: Confirms that the quote submitted by the supplier has been successfully converted to PO.
- Partially converted: Quote on some of the line items have been accepted and converted to PO
- Pending: The quote is yet to be assessed and approved by the customer
- Regretted: The customer has chosen another suppliers quote over the submitted one
- Quoted: Confirms that the supplier has submitted their quote to the customer
- Negotiation: The quote that has been submitted is in the negotiation process
- On hold: The customer has put the submitted quote until further notice
- Cancelled: The RFQ raised by the customer is cancelled and none of the quotes by all suppliers have been accepted
- Partially converted: Quote on some of the line items have been accepted and converted to PO
Once the submitted quote has been accepted, the RFQ status changes to converted status and the supplier receives a notification.
To know more on how to accept a purchase order that was converted from a RFQ Click Here