Requests for quote
A customer's request for a price, recorded as it arrives and turned into a quote once you have matched each line to an item.
A request for quote, or RFQ, is a customer asking what something will cost before they commit: a restaurant pricing twenty cylinders, a contractor pricing a tank set for a new build, a farm pricing a grain-dryer installation. Record it here as it arrives, match each line to an item you sell, and convert it into a quote you can price and send.
How to record a request when a customer asks for a price
- Go to Sales → RFQs and click Add RFQ, or use RFQ in the create menu at the top of any page.
- If the customer sent their request as a PDF, drop it onto the form. AimRack reads the document and fills in the customer, their contacts, their location and the lines it lists; check what it filled in.
- Otherwise choose the Customer and the Customer Location, enter their reference under Customer RFQ, and set the Purchasing Contact and Engineering Contact if you deal with more than one person.
- Set the RFQ Date it arrived and the Due Date, the deadline to send your quote back. Choose the RFQ Location and the Sales Person.
- Click Save. The request opens as a Draft.
How to list what the customer wants when you are building the request
- Click New Line Item (or Add Line Item on an empty request).
- Choose the item under Part when you know which of your items it is. If the customer uses their own name or number for it, enter the Customer Part Number and Customer Part Revision as well.
- Add a Description and the Quantity. Enter more than one quantity when the customer wants prices at several sizes of order.
- Save the line. Repeat for each item.
When lines were read from a PDF but match no item you stock, the request shows Unmapped Extracted Lines. Click Map Lines Now to match each one to an item.
How to hand a request to pricing when every line is entered
Click Ready for Quote. The request is locked for editing and waits for someone to quote it. A request with no customer cannot be marked ready; AimRack says RFQ has no customer.
How to turn a request into a quote when you are ready to price it
- On a request that is Ready for Quote, click Quote.
- Read the window that opens. If a line has no item, it warns Lines need internal part numbers and lists the items it will create from the customer's numbers. Click Cancel and choose the items yourself if you would rather use existing ones.
- Click Convert. AimRack checks the lines against your sales rules, creates the quote with the same customer and lines, fills in each line's price from your price lists and rules, and opens it.
The request becomes Quoted. Carry on from Quotes.
How to close a request when you will not quote it
Click No Quote, choose a No Quote Reason (for example, outside your service area) and save. The request becomes Closed. Set up the reasons under Configure → No Quote Reasons on Sales.
How to change a request when it has already moved on
Reopen, in the menu beside the request number, returns it to Draft so you can edit it. Delete RFQ in the same menu removes a request that is still a Draft.
Where this fits
- A request becomes a quote, and an accepted quote becomes a sales order.
- The customer and their locations come from the customer record.
- The open-requests total and list are on the Sales overview.