Has anybody come up with a solution for generating RFQs in Epicor? The RFQ module is pretty useless

Kinetic ERP
1

  • RFQs don’t have releases. Often what we are requesting from a supplier is confirmation that they can deliver to a specific release schedule, not simply a price for a specific quantity or list of prices per quantity breaks

  • I have not figured out how to a customize a solution. To get multiple releases on an RFQ, we would have to add each part to the RFQ multiple times, and add a UD field for each release date. But then you have to add each supplier to each line. Way too tedious. Or we could add a whole UD table for RFQ releases that could store release/qty/date just like POs. But that would be a massive customization to get the tab for it into RFQ entry, and get it to carry through into the PO. It’s not worth that kind of development effort.

  • Purchase orders have the right data structure (line/release), but its impossible to set up POs as RFQs. First of all, a PO can only be for one vendor. You can’t have one PO sent out to multiple Vendors without creating the whole PO from scratch multiple times. Even worse, you can’t print the PO before its approved, so even if we created a custom report that said RFQ instead of PO on it, we couldn’t generate it without approving the PO, which then impacts MRP etc.

Surely other people have ran into these constraints and come up with a better solution? Our buyers are just creating RFQs by hand in excel. Its very time consuming. There must be a more efficient process?

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I’m going to reply to my own question in case somebody comes across this in the future. Our solution which I am not happy with but its ok for now is:
-Set up a supplier called RFQ

-When a quote is required, enter a purchase order for supplier RFQ and add all required lines/releases (or generate from PO suggestion and change supplier to RFQ)

-Custom “Print RFQ” button on PO entry screen that generates a BAQ report of the quote with no vendor info (why? because you can’t use a PO report style until after you click approve. By using a button and a BAQ report we can generate it without clicking approve)

-Buyers have to manually email the quote sheet to required suppliers and keep track of who they sent it to, who has returned it, etc. <------ This is the part I do not like. But its not as bad as using the RFQ module where you can track suppliers and responses but NOT have releases.

-When quote(s) come back, update supplier price list, then change supplier on the PO to the actual supplier which triggers an update to the pricing based on the supplier price list.

-Approve/print/etc as normal

Another benefit of doing it this way instead of through the RFQ module is that MRP sees the pending PO and stops suggesting that part.

2 Likes
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Hi Alisa,
Helpful, thank you!