HelpRFQs
RFQs: asking vendors for prices
Make an RFQ from a packet, ask vendors, send it the company's way, follow up, and change or withdraw it.
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.
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).
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:
| Way | What happens |
|---|---|
| Emailed as each vendor is asked | From your own mailbox, with the RFQ's PDF and a quotation sheet |
| Emailed when you press Send | All asked vendors at once |
| Drafts in your mailbox | You send them from your own mail program |
| No email: sent by hand | You send the files your way and record it |
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.
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.
Last updated 8 Oct 2026. A message with a code? See the error codes.