Doubt In Quotation and Inquiry

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I have a little doubt with regard to quotation and inquiry. Can anybody please explain whether we have pricing in inquiry? in other words does an inquiry document include pricing?

As far as my understanding goes an inquiry is generated by a customer and it should not have pricing for if he would have had the price and the material then what is the purpose of inquiry, he can directly place an order for the material. according to me inquiry is just a request for quotation and just has a need for a material. This inquiry should be followed by a quotation which has the materials qty, the price at which it is available and by when it will be available. After the customer agrees to the price and the conditions in the quotations he places the order.

please correct me if i'm wrong.

Regards

Deepak

[Former Member]

thanks everybody..

[Former Member]

Hi,

Please try to understand the difference between Inquiry and Quatation.

Inquiry: It is the request send by the customer for his desired goods,for specified quantity on a specified date.

Quatation: Offer from business to customer to provide wanted goods,for specified quantity on a specified date.

Since price of the material varies from time to time basing on different factors every sales document is relevant for pricing. More over if you observe there would be some difference in dates for Inquiry,Quatation and order. Since time also one influencing factor of price every document is relevant for pricing.

Regards,

Revan

[Former Member]

Hi,

Inquiry and Quotation are consider to be Pre-Sales documents.

In Inquiry :We dont have Pricing and here the "Customer requested delivery date" is important.

In Quotation : We have Pricing in Quotation and here "Validity period" is important field.

Regards

Subbu

[Former Member]

Hi Deepak

When customer enquires about some of your product, we create a document for this , means creating an electronic document for it by entering the data for which customer is seeking information.

This document is called Inquiry and it has Pricing data.

With reference to this enquiry we give a Quotation to the customer.Quotation is created in that Sales area where Inquiry is created.

That means , Quotation is from the organisation to the customer from a specific sales area.It is legally binding.

Both Inquiry and Quotation contains Price.

In some industry before creating Quotation they create an Inquiry, as they keep a record of Inquiries for future analysis purpose, beacuse customer has suppose enquired for 5 items but ultimately placed order for 2 items after quotation is given.

He might have refused due high price etc, but he was interested for it that is why he had enquired. So in future, if the price is reduced or new feature is added then he may be contacted.

This is more useful for the Presales department.

[Former Member]

Dear Pradyumna,

Thanks for the answer i think i got it. it goes this way.. when the cust places an inquiry

end user enters his inquiry in the system and also enters the pricing from his end so that when Quotation is created ( coipied ) from the inquiry it automatically has the pricing.

Am I right?

Regards

Deepak

[Lakshmipathi]

Yes as already stated, just for our internal purpose, we create inquiry, so that at a later date, if you want to track how many inquiries are converted into quotation and sale order, you can generate in no time. This will be very much useful from the Top Managements' perspective.

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

[Lakshmipathi]

Dear Deepak

Though logically you are correct but in SAP, you need to maintain pricing for inquiry also. In real terms, we will not disclose our price to customer. In fact, inquiry is nothing but the manufacturer will list out all their products and the lead time to produce.

Since in SAP, from inquiry to quotation, we would be maintaining copy control, you need to have a pricing condition in inquiry also, which would then be copied to quotation followed by sale order.

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

[Former Member]

Dear Lakshmipathi,

If I am not wrong inquiry is generated from the customer end. so how will he give the price.

What I know is that in SAP the customer calls up and then the SAP end user enters his inquiry

in the SAP System, following this entry a Quotation gets generated which is sent across to

the customer which has the price and following its approval the customer places an order which

is again entered in the SAP system by the end user.

Is this how the system functions or is there some other way. PLz explain..

Regards

Deepak

[former_member550050]

Yes

Very much all SAP sales document types have pricing and pricing is a must

Inquiry is also a sales doc type and so it also has pricing

In real domain you will not reveal the pricing at inquiry stage but in SAP the inquiry is also represented as a structured doc type hence pricing applies

It is not necessaary the pricing should be same for inquiry and quotation

Means if a pen is priced at Rs 15 for a customer X and in quotation the price can be changed to Rs14

IN SAP inquiry sales doc must carry some price

Regards

Raja