Requests for quotation and supplier quotations

Until now Contoso Motor Co. has bought rotors (CMC-RTR-200) from Lakeside Components on standard purchase orders at $42.00, the price in the info record. For next year the procurement process owner wants to test the market, secure a second source and lock in prices for 24,000 rotors at plant 1710 Detroit. That is a sourcing exercise, and in SAP S/4HANA it starts with a request for quotation (RFQ).

Creating and sending the RFQ

The buyer creates the RFQ in the Manage RFQs app: the product, quantity, delivery dates and plant, the deadline for quotations, terms, and the bidders (the suppliers invited). The RFQ also records which follow-on document the award should create, such as a purchase order or a purchase contract; check the options your release offers. Contoso invites Lakeside Components, Harbor Electric Parts and Northfield Precision. The RFQ is published and sent to each bidder through output.

Converted systems may still contain classic RFQs created with ME41, quotations maintained with ME47 and the price comparison ME49. The Fiori apps use a newer RFQ object, so decide which one Contoso uses after go-live and do not mix them for the same event. Companies with complex, multi-round events often run sourcing in SAP Ariba Sourcing and pass the result back to SAP S/4HANA; the follow-on documents are the same.

Recording quotations

Suppliers usually reply by email or a portal. The buyer records each reply as a supplier quotation in the Manage Supplier Quotations app, with price, conditions such as freight, delivery date and validity. A new quotation starts in preparation and is submitted when complete. If a supplier declines, record that too, so the comparison shows who did not respond.

Comparing and awarding

Compare Supplier Quotations shows all quotations for one RFQ side by side: total net value including transportation costs, which items each supplier can fully deliver, and which invited suppliers have not answered. Price is only one input. Contoso weighs landed cost, lead time, capacity and quality history.

The decision: Lakeside keeps 70% of the volume on a scheduling agreement at $41.50, because it delivers fast and the line runs just in time; Harbor gets 30% (7,200 rotors) on a quantity contract at $40.80 as a second source; Northfield is declined. The awarded quotation goes through approval if configured, and the system creates the follow-on document. Losing quotations are set to rejected or completed so the RFQ can be closed.

Fairness matters as much as price. Every bidder should receive the same information and the same deadline; questions from one bidder are answered to all. A late quotation accepted for one supplier and not another is the kind of finding that ends up in an internal audit report. The RFQ's deadline and the quotation dates in SAP make this checkable, which is another reason to record replies in the system rather than in a mailbox.