Procurement desk and supplier quotes

The Procurement desk is where approved purchase requests turn into orders. Department manager Besides the Owner and Company admins, it is open to the Department manager of your procurement department (see below).

Open My work, select New, then Procurement desk (Purchase requests, suppliers and quotes). It has two tabs: Requests and Suppliers. Back to My work closes it.

#Keep a supplier directory

1. On Suppliers, select Add supplier.
2. Enter the Company name and Email, and if you like the Contact name, Phone, Tax ID, Website, Address, City, Country, Categories and Internal notes.
3. Save. Set a supplier to Inactive to stop asking them for quotes.

To bring in many at once, download the Sample CSV, fill it in and use Import CSV. Export CSV downloads the directory.

#Handle a purchase request

Requests lists all Purchase requests with their status. Search or filter by status, then select one.

• Waiting for manager approval: you can request quotes once the requester's approver says yes. It moves on automatically.
• When it is approved, use Request quotes from suppliers: search the active suppliers, tick the ones to ask and select Email selected suppliers.

Each supplier gets an email with a personal link. On that page they enter a unit price, currency, lead time and notes, and submit the quote. The link is valid for 14 days. Without an email server (SMTP), the emails are queued until it is set up.

#Award a quote

When quotes come in, they show on the request with each supplier's answer.

1. Choose the best quote and select it.
2. Confirm Award this quote? with Select & start purchase.

The chosen supplier gets an acceptance email; the other suppliers who quoted get a polite rejection email. The request moves to Purchase started, and the requester sees it in My work.

#Choose the procurement department

An Owner or Company admin decides whose Department manager runs the desk:

1. Open Company admin → Work → Work settings and select Procurement desk.
2. Under Procurement department, pick the department, for example your purchasing team. The change is saved at once.

The Department manager of that department then sees Procurement desk under New in My work and gets a notification for each approved purchase request. Owners and Company admins always have the desk.

If you leave it on Not chosen (a department named “Procurement”), the desk goes to the Department manager of a department called Procurement, as in earlier versions. If you have no such department, only Owners and Company admins run it.