A good RFQ should be simple enough that multiple suppliers can easily provide the same answer to the same commercial question. A few words will not do. A request for quotation must be specific enough to prevent vendors from each making up a different version of the purchase. A good request for quotation tells vendors what is needed, what format to use in their offers, when you need the offer and the specific terms that should be made clearly stated to you.
To give an example, consider the situation where you received a request that read simply: “Please quote for 50 storage boxes.” To begin with, write down a few questions you might have if you were the supplier and were about to answer this request. Do you know the size, the material, weight, lid style, color, packaging quantity (i.e. how many boxes in a package), destination address of the delivery and the due date? This simple exercise will highlight any information you have not yet specified in your request for quotation, and will help you turn an informal purchase requisition into a comparable document that allows for comparison by suppliers.
Your RFQ should provide details of the scope of supply in the main part of the document, which could be a product or service description, the quantity, the unit of measure, the required specifications, and any requirements which must be met. If you want to source a service, specify the locations, activities that you expect to be performed, the frequency, the working time, the reporting needs. If you source a good, indicate what you expect the seller to do, for example, you may want them to arrange delivery, installation, assembly, acceptance testing, training, or any documents (such as operation or maintenance manuals) required for the item to be installed. Identify any options in a separate field, to let vendors know where you have no flexibility in requirement, and where you allow alternatives.
In your RFQ, also indicate the format in which the suppliers must give you a quote, such as the unit price, the sum price, the freight, the taxes, setup or maintenance costs, where appropriate, must be displayed separately. In your RFQ, vendors are invited to state their offer including: the proposed payment terms, delivery lead time, delivery terms, any minimum order quantity, the length of time the RFQ response will remain valid for. Inexperience is often to blame when vendors get an RFQ that lists all the item descriptions they can imagine, but leave all the fields above blank, and return a proposal that cannot be compared with others because there is a different price composition in every offer.
In your RFQ, please state how any assumptions and exceptions by your vendors will be handled in your RFQ. Vendors will be asked to note which specifications they cannot meet and to clearly specify how they can offer a solution. You do not want them to hide exclusions in attachments or in the fine print of their general terms. You can give a direction to “Please state all deviations and exclusions and additional charges in your response” to help your purchasing department have a better understanding of whether suppliers are complying technically and commercially.
Your RFQ should have a deadline and a reference to contact in case you need any clarification. If one vendor asks a question that affects how the requirement is interpreted, all vendors participating in the RFQ are asked the same question. Keep the original RFQ, the Q and As, and the amendments to the details, in the procurement document to maintain consistency throughout the process. And this avoids the situation where one vendor prepares an offer based on information that the other vendors did not see.
Before you send your RFQ, take the time and read the request yourself as if you had no prior knowledge of it, is it clear the outcome, the quantity, the delivery, the time frame, the pricing format, the commercial terms, etc, all of them? And then ask yourself, “Can 3 vendors read this RFQ and create offers that can go directly in my comparison Excel without any corrections?” If there are still things you need to guess at, then you should be clearer, even before your request leaves your inbox.