When quoting a job, a print company may need to get prices for an outsourced task, in order to
estimate the cost for inclusion in his quote. This system allows them to nominate a list of
suppliers, and get emailed bids for the work. It's also possible to outsource the entire job.
Activity: the summary job description
Last date of receiving quote: The user specifies the cut-off date and time by which he wants the
bids to be in. It could be at a given time on the same day.
Quantity: How many are required (of whatever it is).
Notes: A more detailed description of what is required. This will become the basis for the
purchase order if and when the job is confirmed.
Clicking on the 'select suppliers' button gives a list of your chosen suppliers from which you can
select the ones you want to bid, before pressing OK.
On pressing OK the system will send out an email (not through your own email client) containing
the details you entered, the cut-off date and time, and a link to the bid page on the Internet.
If a supplier is interested in bidding, he should click on the link, enter his email address (for
authentication), and specify his price for the job. He can also add notes to qualify his bid. Once he
has entered his bid he cannot re-bid.
As bids come in, you can see them listed in Messages
At the pre-determined cutoff time, if you go back to your job and open the task you should see the
bids you have received together with those who have yet to bid. Just select the one you want (if
any), and it will become a potential purchase order.
The chosen supplier will be sent an email to
tell him so (unsuccessful bidders will NOT receive an email). Of course choosing the supplier's
bid does not constitute a firm purchase order, which is evidently dependent on your quote being
accepted by his customer. However, if you get the job, the winning bidder should receive a
purchase order in due course.
N.B. Security and spam filters.
In order to ensure that their RFQ emails don't get filtered out before they receive them, suppliers
should ensure that their spam filter allows emails from rfq@printprices.com. These emails come
from the PrintSum PrintPrices server.
They also should not attempt to reply to the email you receive as it will simply bounce back. To
bid, they have to click on the link in the email. Their email program may warn you about the
possible consequences of clicking on the link. To protect themselves, they can verify that the link
points to an address that starts with http://www.printprices.com/RFQ/Authenticate - this makes
sure it is a link to our servers and not to a third party's site.
