SELECT A CONTACT   

Begin by selecting the organization and individual for whom you are ordering the product. This can be either your company, an existing customer, or a new prospect. In all cases, you are storing this information in your Contacts Browse. Press the field lookup button to select a contact from the Contacts Browse. If this is a brand new contact enter it there before continuing.

RESPOND BY  

Enter the date the bid must be returned by. The default is the current date plus five days.

SALES REP ID  

Defaults to the logged in Employee ID.

PRODUCT ID 

Enter the product to be quoted . You can search for, or add new products from products browse. You can select an existing product which closely matches the new item to be ordered, then change the specs for this RFQ by pressing the [Specs] button.

When you select a product here you are only making a copy of it for the sake of the RFQ. So the Product you choose does not have to have anything at all to do with the customer/prospect you are quoting! In other words, it does not need to be linked to that customer. The only requirement is that it should have similar characteristics (Specifications, description, Unit of Measure, etc.) to what you are quoting to save you time.

When you accept the quote (that is, convert it to a sales order) you can choose to add the product with the new specs as a completely new product to the Products/Services browse.

[Specs]         

Click this button to edit the specs of the selected Product for use on this quote. The Specs are unique to this RFQ and will not overwrite or affect in anyway, the Specs linked with the Product Master. You can think of these Specs as having been borrowed for the RFQ.

If this is a new item, then the version of the Specs you enter into the RFQ become the Specs of the new Product when you convert the RFQ to a Sales Order.

QUANTITIES 1, 2, 3, 4     

These are the quantities to quote. You are not required to enter a quantity for all four fields, but you must at least enter a quantitiy in QUANTITY #1.

U/M     

Enter the Unit of Measure for this Item.

Some examples are shown below. Please note that this field does not affect the calculation for this Item. Use abbreviation(s) most suitable for your bookkeeping, for example:

      CT Carton

      EA Each

      M Thousand

PACKAGE QTY     

Enter the quantity per package on this order. Leave this field blank if you want Simple Accounting to automatically insert the word ‘STANDARD’ in this field on the spec sheet.

VENDOR TAB

ORDER TYPE     

This field indicates if this is a new order or a repeat order with or without changes.

      E Exact Repeat

If the ORDER TYPE is (E)xact Repeat, purchase orders generated will print in bold ‘EXACT REPEAT’ in place of detailed specifications in the body of the RFQ.

      N New Order, first time

      S Same quantities, spec changed

      B Changed Both the spec and the quantities

      C Changed Quantities, same spec

DEFAULT NOTES     

These notes will appear on RFQs to all vendors unless you type in different notes for each vendor.

CUSTOMER TAB

QUOTE DATE      

Enter the date the quote was generated for the Customer. This is automatically entered for you when a Customer Quote is generated from the RFQ.

NOTES         

This Note Taker lets you enter free text which will appear on the Customer Quote generated from this RFQ.

VENDOR     

Enter the vendor from whom you are requesting a bid. The default is the default Vendor ID assigned to this product, although you can select any vendor you like.

 If you select the Favorite Vendors Only checkbox to the right, you select from pre-selected vendors (those linked with the Product’s Product Type.)

PRICE WITH     

Enter another RFQ Transaction ID to be combined for pricing with this RFQ.

FOB     

INSERT TEXT

SPECIFIC VENDOR NOTES    

These are notes that are unique to this Vendor’s Request for Quote. The default notes which appear are those you entered into the preceding window in the header of the Request for Quote.

SHIP VIA    

Enter the type of delivery you are requesting from the manufacturer or use the field lookup button to select.

1ST QTY/COST/DELIVERY    

2ND QTY/COST/SHIP DATE

3RD QTY/COST/DELIVERY

4th QTY/COST/DELIVERY

Now enter the three quantities and requested delivery dates you are requesting a bid on. Fill in the cost field when you receive the bid from the vendor.

VENDOR QUOTE     

Enter the vendor’s quote number when you receive their response.

VENDOR QUOTE DATE     

Enter the date the quote was received.

FREIGHT     

Enter any delivery charges when you receive the quote.

FREIGHT ACCOUNT     

Enter the G/L account to post freight expense to. The default is set in FILES|Setup Global Options but you can override using the field lookup button.

Once you have finished entering an RFQ you can then you print, fax or e-mail it to all the vendors you have added as line items. This system makes it easy to gets bids from as many vendors as you like and compare them based not only on price, but also turn-around time.

After you have printed the RFQ(s) you would normally wait to receive bids from the vendor(s). After you have done so, you can then enter their bids into each line item for the RFQ. At that point, you can Accept the RFQ, which converts to RFQ to either:

• A Sales Order and Purchase Order, to give the manufacturer the go-ahead to print the job, or

• A Sales Quote, with selected line items from the RFQ to let your client choose which item to order.

An accepted RFQ may not be edited at all. To summarize, you will usually enter/edit each RFQ at least three times:

1. Enter the RFQ header and one line item for each vendor you wish to get a bid from. When you are done, tag each line item you wish to print, then press the [Print] button to print or fax the RFQ to the tagged vendors.

2. Edit the RFQ. As the bids come back, edit the items, entering the costs and quote #s for each.

3. Edit the RFQ, then press the [Accept] button. If you wish to convert to a sales order, select a line item, then press the [Accept] button to create a live purchase order and sales order from the RFQ. If you wish to convert to a quote, select the line items to appear on the sales quote from the browse, then press the [Proceed] button.

If you convert to a sales order when accepting an RFQ, you will probably want to go to the Vendor Purchase Orders browse and print the P.O.