Getting Quotes From Suppliers
Ask several subcontractors what they charge, compare the answers side by side, and award one — without any of them seeing your prices or your client.
What you'll learn
- ✓Asking several suppliers for a price in one action
- ✓What a supplier sees when they open the link
- ✓Comparing quotes, including the ones that are not like-for-like
- ✓Awarding a quote and turning it into a work order
- ✓How many open inquiries each plan allows
Open the Suppliers tab and click Get quotes
Open a job with line items, go to the Suppliers tab and click “Get quotes”. It sits next to “Sub work out”, and reads before it, because asking what something costs comes before committing to pay it.
Pro tip: In AV mode you tick individual line items. In Planner mode you choose a whole section, exactly as work orders do.
Pick more than one supplier
The supplier list is multi-select on purpose. Asking one at a time is how you end up with a single quote and nothing to compare it against — tick every dry-hire house or trade you want a price from, and they each get their own link.
Say when you need the price
Set a “price needed by” date and add a covering note if the number depends on something — delivery included, crew not included, that sort of thing. The scope text is generated from the lines you picked and describes what they are supplying, not what the event is about.
Pro tip: If the scope or your note names your client, CueQuote refuses to send and tells you which word to fix. An RFQ leaves the building exactly as a work order does.
Send, and pass on the links
Each supplier gets their own link with a Copy button. What they see is the quantities, the dates and the venue. What they never see is your prices, your client, or who else you asked.
Read the comparison properly
Quotes come back in the same tab, cheapest first, with the gap to the next quote shown in money rather than left for you to work out. Lines a supplier said they cannot cover are flagged on their card.
Pro tip: A quote missing two of your six lines is not the cheapest quote — it is a different quote. That is why the flag is there rather than letting a smaller total speak for itself.
Award one
“Award this quote” turns the winner into a work order at the price that supplier actually gave you, not at your own estimate. Their link stops working, and the work order behaves exactly like one you issued directly — same insurance check, same acceptance, same signature.
Pro tip: Free plans can keep 6 inquiries open at once, Starter 30, Pro and above unlimited. Withdrawing one frees the slot.