Everything before the purchase order. A requisition says what the business needs and by when; a request for quotation (RFQ) asks several vendors to price the same lines; each vendor's answer is a supplier quotation; the comparison turns the picks into purchase orders. Essentials plan and above.
#Requisitions
Purchases → Requisitions. Raise one three ways:
- New requisition — Date *, Required by, Deliver to (a warehouse), Type (Purchase; Transfer and Manufacture are recorded for now), a Note, and one line per Item with the Quantity, Required by and an Est. rate (defaults to the item's cost price).
- From a production plan's shortage list (Chapter 11.4) — every short component in one requisition.
- From low stock (the button on the Requisitions list, or Create requisition on the Inventory overview's stock alerts) — every item whose projected stock is below its reorder point at the quantity to order (Chapter 10.8).
- Replenishment — Draft requisition on Inventory → Replenishment, or the automatic morning run when it is switched on — one draft per warehouse, refreshed rather than duplicated (Chapter 10.8).
Click Submit. If an approval rule for Requisitions matches its estimated value (Chapter 14), the request waits for approval and opens once approved; otherwise it opens at once. Statuses: Draft → Open → Partly ordered → Ordered → Received; Cancelled. A draft can be edited or deleted; anything later is cancelled instead, and an ordered requisition cannot be cancelled.
From an open requisition:
- Create RFQ — pick the vendors and a Respond by date; the RFQ carries every line still to order.
- Create purchase order — for items whose price you already know: one draft PO to one vendor at the estimated rates, which you can adjust before issuing it. The vendor is pre-filled with the lines' preferred supplier (the item's Suppliers, Chapter 10.2), their item codes go on the lines, and the expected date comes from their lead time.
The requisition follows what happens next: Ordered advances as purchase orders are raised from it (directly or through an RFQ), Received as goods receipts arrive against those orders, and the side panel links every RFQ and PO it produced.
#Requests for quotation
Purchases → RFQs. An RFQ has the lines to quote (item, quantity, required by), the Vendors to ask, a Respond by date, a Message and Terms. Create one from a requisition or by hand (New RFQ).
Send to vendors emails each vendor the RFQ as a PDF with a private link to quote online. A vendor without an email address still gets a link — copy it from the vendor list with the copy button. Links are single-use and stop working a week after the Respond by date, when the RFQ closes, or when you Resend (which issues fresh links). The vendor table shows who was sent the request, who opened it, who quoted, who declined (with their note), and the quotation each one produced.
A vendor who replies by phone or email instead: Enter quote on their row records the quotation for them.
#The vendor's quote page
The link opens a plain page with your company name, the lines and the respond-by date. The vendor enters a unit rate and optional lead time per line, their reference, how long the quote is valid and a note, and submits once; or they decline to quote with a reason. Afterwards the link shows the quotation they sent. Nothing on the page needs a login.
#Supplier quotations
Purchases → Quotations lists every quotation — the vendor, date, Valid until, the RFQ it answers, whether it came through the vendor link or was recorded by you, the amount and its status: Open, Accepted (on a purchase order), Rejected, or Expired (past its valid-until date).
Record quotation captures a quote outside any RFQ. A quotation you recorded can be edited while open; one the vendor submitted is theirs — record a corrected one instead. Reject closes a quote you will not use.
#Comparing and converting
Compare quotes on the RFQ page (or Compare with others on a quotation) shows an item × vendor grid: every quotation is a column, every line a row, with each vendor's rate, line total, discount and lead time. The lowest usable rate on each line is marked lowest; Pick lowest everywhere selects it on every line, and you can override any row with the radio buttons. Expired or rejected quotations show but cannot be picked.
Create purchase orders raises one purchase order per winning vendor with the picked lines at the quoted rate, discount, tax and currency. Each PO is issued the normal way — submitted for approval when a Purchase order rule matches, otherwise opened — and links back to the requisition, the RFQ and the quotation on its page. The winning quotations become Accepted, the rest Rejected, and the RFQ closes.