Recording a supplier’s response to an RFQ, RFP or tender

Supply Chain → Strategic Sourcing. Pricing a response line by line against the enquiry’s own lines, and what is refused.

A sourcing event — an RFI, RFP, RFQ or tender — lists what is being sourced, line by line, and invites suppliers to price it. When a supplier answers, the buyer records it on the event: open Supply Chain → Strategic Sourcing → Sourcing Events, find the event and choose Record a response from its row. The event has to be published and not yet closed.

1. Choose the supplier. The list offers only the suppliers invited to this event. To take an offer from anyone else, add them on the event’s Invited suppliers tab first.
2. Enter the payment terms as days of credit — 30 for Net 30, 0 for cash on delivery. Or, instead of typing days, pick the supplier’s terms from Or pick their terms, and they are turned into days (Net 60 is 60). Left empty, the supplier’s standing terms are used. Enter how long the offer is valid, too.
3. Price the lines. Every line of the enquiry is already listed — what is being sourced and its unit, which cannot be changed here, and the quantity, which can, because a supplier may quote a different amount. Enter the unit price the supplier quoted against each line they answered, with the lead time they quoted for that line and a note if they gave one.
4. Lead time for every line, above the lines, is a shortcut: it fills every line that has no lead time of its own. It is optional.
5. Leave a line without a price if the supplier did not quote it. It is not part of their response, rather than a quote of zero that would win the ranking.
6. Save. The response total is the priced lines added up, and the invitation shows the supplier as having responded.

Lead time belongs to each line

A supplier may deliver one item in a week and another in six. So the lead time is recorded on each line, and the response’s lead time — the one compared with other suppliers and scored — is its longest line: the order is not complete until the last line arrives. Lists show it as Lead time (days, longest line).

On a response already saved, Lead time for every line sets that lead time on every priced line. To give lines different lead times, change them under Priced lines; the response’s lead time is then the longest of them again.

Every response to the event can be seen under Supply Chain → Strategic Sourcing → Invitations, too: each supplier asked, when, and whether they have responded.

• A response with no price on any line is refused.
• A negative price is refused.
• A supplier can respond once per event.
• Scoring and the award read what was recorded here. The response is scored and ranked as soon as it is saved — see Scoring, comparing and awarding a sourcing event.
• A lead time or payment terms recorded wrongly can be corrected on the response, and the event is re-ranked at once.