RFQ Quote Comparison

What this tool does

The cheapest unit price is almost never the cheapest purchase. It is the first number a supplier puts in front of you, and the one they have most freedom to shape, because everything else that will appear on the invoice can be moved somewhere the comparison sheet is not looking. A set-up charge for a fixture. Carriage, on a collection basis, when the others quoted delivered. A minimum order of four hundred against a requirement of two hundred and fifty. A material grade one step down from the drawing. Every one is legitimate and openly stated in the quotation, and every one is invisible the moment somebody types three columns of unit prices into a spreadsheet and picks the smallest. CM8-282 exists to stop that: it compares quotes line by line, adds back everything that arrives with the pieces, and ranks the suppliers on what you will actually pay.

You record one row per quoted line; the tool does the rest, inside this single file, with no account, no upload and no network request of any kind, so suppliers' prices never leave the computer you are using.

Landed cost, defined

Tooling and carriage belong inside the comparison because they are inside the invoice. A one-off set-up charge is not optional: it is a condition of getting the pieces at the price quoted, on the same order. Carriage is the same argument in a smaller coat — a quote for collection and a quote delivered to your works are two different offers, and the gap between them lands on somebody, usually you, later, on a freight invoice nobody connected back to the purchasing decision.

The effective unit cost is the number to argue with: what a piece really costs once the set-up and the freight are spread across the quantity you are buying. A set-up charge over fifty thousand pieces is a rounding error; the same charge over two hundred and fifty pieces can add half as much again to each one. Where a supplier charges one delivery charge for the whole order, split it across the lines by value or weight — their total is right either way, but the effective unit costs only compare if you allocate.

Minimum order quantity is a cost, not a footnote

A cheaper unit price that forces you to buy sixty per cent more than you need is not cheaper — unless you will genuinely use the extra. Where a supplier's minimum order quantity exceeds the quantity you asked for, the tool shows the over-buy and prices it at the quoted unit price, so you see money rather than a piece count.

Then ask the honest question. If it is a fast mover that will be consumed inside a quarter, the over-buy is a timing difference, not a loss. If it is a slow mover, a special, or anything exposed to a design change, the extra pieces are cash converted into a shelf: paid for, stored, counted at stocktake, possibly scrapped. That is what the cost of capital setting is there to remind you of — the table shows what a year of financing the over-buy costs at the rate you set. It sits beside landed cost rather than inside it, because folding it in would claim to know whether the extra pieces are waste or stock you would have bought anyway, and that judgement is yours.

Lead time and payment terms are commercial value

Two quotes at the same landed cost are not the same offer if one delivers in ten days on thirty-day terms and the other in six weeks against payment before dispatch. Lead time lets you hold less stock; payment terms are, quite literally, an interest-free loan for their length.

The tool deliberately does not convert either into a money figure and add it to landed cost. It could — the arithmetic is trivial — but the answer depends on your own cost of capital, your cash position this quarter, and what holding stock costs you. Those numbers are yours and they move; a tool that quietly assumes them produces a confident total that is wrong in a way nobody can see. So both are shown beside the money instead: the lead time chart draws each supplier's slowest line against the tolerance you set, and the supplier summary carries the terms next to the landed cost. The chart uses the longest quoted line, not the average — an order is not delivered until its last line arrives.

Compliance is a gate, not a discount

When a supplier offers a substitute material, a different finish or a partial quantity, the price they have given you is the price of something you did not ask for. Ranking it against compliant quotes on price alone is not a comparison; it is an unannounced change to the specification for one supplier, made without telling the others.

So untick the compliance box and write the deviation. The tool will not accept a non-compliant line with an empty deviation note, because that note is the only thing that makes the line comparable at all: it says what is different, so you can judge whether the difference is acceptable and worth the money saved. If a deviation is genuinely attractive, accept it formally, reissue to everyone on the new basis, and compare again.

Quote validity — the deadline everyone misses

Quotes lapse. It is written on them, usually in the smallest type on the page, and it is the most common reason a comparison has to be rebuilt from scratch. You compare, you circulate, you wait for a signature, and by the time the order is raised the winning price is gone — often from the supplier who was cheapest precisely because they priced on a short validity.

Enter the valid-until date on every line and the tool watches it: a tile counts the quotes lapsing within a fortnight and names the one closest to the edge, and the supplier summary shows each supplier's earliest expiry with the days remaining. If the decision will take longer than the validity, ask for an extension in writing before it expires. It is nearly always granted before, and repriced after.

Running a fair comparison

The arithmetic is only as good as the enquiry underneath it. A few rules do most of the work.

• Same specification to everyone — same drawing revision, material, finish, packaging and certification requirement.
• Same quantities — and where you want prices at more than one volume, ask everyone for the same volumes and compare each separately.
• Same delivery basis. Ask everyone for delivery, or everyone for collection, but ask the same way. Where a supplier answers on a different basis, record it in the delivery basis field and put the freight into the carriage column so the landed figures line up.
• Same return date, and honour it. Taking a late quote after the others are open costs you the market's willingness to bid.
• Tell the losing suppliers why — where they were strong, roughly where they fell behind, without disclosing anyone else's figures. Suppliers who never hear back stop quoting.

Spell the RFQ reference, item and supplier name identically on every row — the grouping is literal, and a stray abbreviation splits a supplier in two and quietly halves their total.

Related tools

Two tools cover buying decisions and answer different questions. The Bid Evaluation Matrix (CM8-274) scores capability — weighted criteria across technical, commercial, risk and service — for when the decision turns on whether a supplier can do the work well. This tool compares numbers: the same parts, quoted by several suppliers, ranked line by line on landed cost. Use CM8-274 to decide who is fit to supply; use CM8-282 to decide who gets the order. The Purchase Order Tracker (CM8-77) takes over once the award is made.

FAQ

Can I compare several RFQs in one file? Yes. Tiles, charts and the comparison table focus on the RFQ with the most lines; the supplier summary lists every RFQ separately.

A supplier only quoted some of the lines. Enter what they quoted. The supplier summary shows how many lines each priced, so a supplier who quoted only the easy half cannot look cheap on a basket that is not the same basket.

Should the whole RFQ go to one supplier? Not necessarily — the decision is recorded per line for that reason. Weigh the saving against the extra deliveries, invoices and goods-in work.

One supplier is far cheaper than everyone else. Good news? Sometimes. It can also mean they misread the specification, quoted the wrong revision, or intend to recover margin through variations. An outlier is a question to ask before the order, not a discovery to make after it.

Where do taxes and duties go? Nowhere here. Recoverable taxes are not a cost to you; irrecoverable charges, duties and clearance fees are, but they differ so much by route and by jurisdiction that a generic field would mislead more than it helps. Check them separately.

Saving your work

Quoted lines, settings and the report header are written to this browser's local storage as you type. That storage belongs to one browser on one computer: another browser, a private window or a clean-up that clears site data will not have it. Treat Export .json as the real save — one file containing everything, which Import .json restores anywhere. Reset asks twice, then erases everything, with no undo. A comparison file holds several suppliers' prices in one place — never send one to a supplier.

Accuracy & disclaimer

The arithmetic is plain and the tool does it faithfully. What it cannot do is check the inputs: whether every supplier quoted the same drawing revision, whether the delivery bases were normalised before the carriage was entered, whether the lead times are working or calendar days, or whether a quotation carries a condition no field here represents.

Landed cost covers the figures entered and nothing more. Duties and irrecoverable taxes, currency movement between quotation and payment, inspection, rework and warranty cost, the price of a late delivery and the cost of holding stock all sit outside it — and in a close comparison any one of them can decide the real winner. Read the ranking as a starting point for a commercial judgement, not the judgement itself. This is a comparison aid, not procurement, tax, customs, legal or financial advice.