Four quotes come back on the same line item. One is clearly the lowest. It becomes the cost basis, the bid is priced from it, and the job is won.
Then the conditions arrive. The price was ex works, not delivered. It excluded a tax the others had included. The lead time was quoted from receipt of approved drawings rather than from order. The model offered is adjacent to the one specified, near enough that nobody queried it, different enough that the buyer will.
None of that was hidden. All of it was in the quote. It just was not in the number, and the number is what got compared.
You did not choose the cheapest supplier. You chose the one whose quote was least complete.
What a quote has to be checked for
Four dimensions, and a failure in any one makes the price meaningless rather than merely higher.
- Arithmetic. Unit price times quantity against the stated total. Tax included or added. Currency stated. This sounds beneath mentioning until you find how often a total does not match its own lines.
- Terms. Delivery basis, payment terms, validity period, what the price excludes. A price that excludes freight to site is not comparable to one that includes it.
- Lead time. From what event. Order, approved drawings, receipt of deposit. The same eight weeks measured from three different starting points is three different delivery dates.
- Origin and item. Is this the specified item or a substitute. Where is it manufactured. On a bid with an origin requirement, a cheaper part from the wrong country has a price of zero to you.
Score it, and say what the score is about
We audit every incoming quote and score it out of 10, and the score always carries its noun, because quote 6 out of 10 and our reply 8 out of 10 measure entirely different things. A bare number on a board is not information.
| Band | Meaning | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Quote 8 out of 10 and above | Qualified | Usable as a cost basis. Price, terms, and item all check out. |
| Quote 4 to 7 out of 10 | Potential | One identified problem. Go back for that one thing, nothing else. |
| Quote below 4 out of 10 | Unqualified | Wrong item or unusable terms. Do not spend another cycle. |
Sample bands. The tier is always shown with the score.
The useful consequence is that comparison becomes possible. You are no longer ranking four numbers that mean different things. You are ranking the ones that survived the check, and the cheapest of those is a real answer.
The judgement the score does not make
An audit tells you a quote is internally sound and matches the requirement. It does not tell you whether to use it. That is commercial, and it belongs to a person.
A supplier with a slightly worse price and a delivery record you trust may be the right choice on a job with liquidated damages. The audit gives you that decision cleanly, with the trade-off visible, instead of burying it under a sorted column.
Sample data. Cheapest usable is a different sort order from cheapest.
Why this compounds
One audited quote saves you an argument. A year of audited quotes changes what you know about your supply base: who quotes completely, who leaves things out, who has to be asked twice about origin every time.
That record is worth more than any individual saving, and it only exists if the checking happened consistently rather than when somebody had time.