Guide · Inside sales
RFQ software vs. ERP quoting vs. spreadsheets
Most technical distributors already quote somewhere: in the ERP's quotation module, in a spreadsheet, or in a mix of both. The question isn't whether you can create a quote – it's how much manual work sits between an incoming RFQ and a quote your team is willing to sign.
Updated 11 October 2026
The four steps every RFQ goes through
| Step | Spreadsheet | ERP quoting module | Dedicated RFQ software (Quotrail) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intake (email, PDF, Excel) | Retyped by hand | Usually retyped; some imports for clean files | Reads email, PDF, Excel and CSV; detects columns, quantities and units; flags unreadable attachments |
| Matching (manufacturer / customer part numbers, free text) | Manual catalog search | Exact item numbers work; variations need a person | Matches each line to your catalog via several routes and shows the evidence for every match |
| Pricing (contract prices, customer prices, quantity breaks) | Formulas that break | Strong, once the item is identified | Applies your own terms to every matched line |
| Review & approval | Email ping-pong | Depends on setup | Uncertain lines first; nothing is sent without a person's approval; audit log |
When the ERP module is enough
If most RFQs arrive with your own item numbers and in clean formats, the ERP quoting module is usually the right tool.
When dedicated RFQ software pays off
When requests arrive as PDFs, spreadsheets and email text, with manufacturer or customer part numbers and "or equal" lines, the expensive part is intake and matching – before the ERP even gets involved. That's the step Quotrail is built for. It doesn't replace your ERP; it prepares a review-ready draft so your inside sales team spends its time on decisions, not retyping.
Questions to ask any RFQ tool
- Can it read the formats your customers actually send – including messy PDFs?
- Does it show why it matched a line to an item?
- Are prices calculated from your terms, not generic lists?
- Can anything be sent without a person approving it? (It shouldn't.)
- Is customer data used to train models? (Quotrail: no.)