Request For Quotation (RFQ) is an external purchasing document that usually used as bidding

process invitation. RFQ is sent by a company to the prospective vendor to request the vendor
providing a quotation which contains information about the price and delivery conditions, terms of
payment, etc that the vendor formally agree in case it is appointed to provide the material/service
to the company.

RFQ can be created from ME57 t-code. On the ME57 screen, the buyer can select the PR items
that will be processed into RFQ. RFQ can also be created from ME41 t-code. An RFQ can
contain items from one or several PR documents. Data from PR document, such as material
number, short text, quantity, delivery date, etc will be copied into the RFQ, so the buyer does not
have to re-enter them.

For one bidding process, the buyer usually sends RFQ to more than one vendor. The buyer must
create an RFQ for each vendor (which usually contains the same items). The vendor address and
other data can be obtained from vendor master data. The buyer can also create an RFQ to a
vendor that has not been created in the vendor master data by using one-time vendor. The
buyer must enter the address and other data of the one-time vendor when creating RFQ.

Each RFQ has its own RFQ number. All RFQs in one bidding process can be grouped with a
collective number. Collective number is a 10 characters field in the header data of RFQ
document. It can be alphanumeric. Several RFQs with same collective number can be listed,
such as in price comparison, based on the collective number.

In the RFQ, the buyer must include the information about the material/service needed from the
vendors (copied from the PR), the latest submission date of the quotation, the preferred term of
payment, currency, incoterm, etc. RFQ can be printed in a hardcopy and sent to the vendor, or it
also can be sent through email.

The vendor will receive the RFQ and will check whether they can supply the materials/services
specified in the RFQ or not. If the vendor can, it will send the quotation to the buyer. The
quotation should contain the offering regarding the material/service specified in the RFQ, such as
the price and conditions, the delivery date, the term of payment, incoterm, the validate date of the
quotation, etc. The vendor should also include the RFQ number in their quotation so the buyer
will know the RFQ that the quotation refers to.
Quotation and its relationship with RFQ

The buyer will input the information in the vendors quotation to the SAP quotation document with
ME47 (Maintain Quotation) t-code. The quotation document in SAP is the same with the RFQ
document, theyre a single document. The data of an RFQ and the corresponding quotation are
stored in the same record in the same table in SAP.

RFQ/Quotation documents, like other Purchasing documents, consist of three sections, which are
header, item overview, and item details. The header data of RFQ/quotation are stored in EKKO
table. The item detail data of RFQ/Quotation are stored in EKPO table.

In standard SAP ERP, the difference between RFQ and Quotation documents is only the screen
layout of the transaction that can edit and display them. Some fields, such as: net price,
quotation, quotation date, tax code, etc are shown in maintain quotation (ME47) and display
quotation (ME48) transaction. In transaction create/edit/display RFQ (ME41/ME42/ME43), those
fields are suppressed / hidden.

So, basically, when the buyer create RFQ (from ME57 or ME41 t-code), SAP create a new record
in the EKKO table with the RFQ number as a primary key, and some records (same with the
count of RFQ items) in the EKPO table with the RFQ number and RFQ item number as primary
keys. At this stage, the quotation, quotation date, net price, tax code fields are blank. When the
buyer maintain the quotation (input the vendors quotation information to SAP) with ME47 t-code,
by entering the RFQ number in the initial screen, some fields such as the quotation, quotation
date, net price (and other conditions), tax code, etc are input into SAP. The corresponding fields
on the EKKO and EKPO tables are updated.

When a Quotation is maintained, the Status of purchasing document field (STATU) in EKKO
table is updated from blank to A (RFQ with quotation). In EKPO table, the RFQ status field
(STATU) of the RFQ items that have been maintained (not necessarily all items of the RFQ) are
updated from blank to A (Quotation exists in case of RFQ item). With these fields, we can distinct
which RFQ and RFQ items that have been maintained (have quotation) in ABAP programming.

When the buyer maintain quotations, he can use the info update indicator (a field in the item
detail, EKPO table) to define whether the info record is to be created (if there is no info record for
the material and vendor before) / updated (if there is an info record for the material and vendor
before), or not. SAP will copy the conditions from the quotations to the info record.