RFQ and enquiry automation
RFQ automation for distributors turns a customer’s request for quotation, whether an enquiry email, a PDF schedule or an Excel take-off, into a quote built from your own catalogue and prices. ERP Agent identifies the right product for every shorthand line, scores each match, brings in the customer’s price and marks the lines to check. Your team approves, and the quote lands in your ERP, CRM or other system.
A request for quotation from a contractor or installer is seldom a clean form. It is a buyer writing “quote attached please, need it back this week” above an Excel take-off in their own columns, a consultant’s PDF schedule, or a list pasted into the body of a reply. The lines are in the customer’s shorthand: abbreviations, sizes without units, competitor part numbers, the customer’s own article codes and the odd line that says only “for the above”.
According to our case study, a sales rep spends on average 4–7 minutes per line when creating quotes and orders by hand. On a 60-line enquiry that is 4–7 hours of desk work, while the buyer has often sent the same list to other suppliers. The first accurate reply has the best chance of winning the order.
Most “RFQ software” is built for buyers who send RFQs to suppliers and compare the bids. RFQ software for distributors does the seller’s job: read what the customer asked for, identify it in your catalogue and price it for that customer. ERP Agent is built for exactly that job, and it is where AI quote automation for distributors starts.
ERP Agent reads the email body and every attachment: PDF (including scanned PDFs), Excel, CSV, Word, images and forwarded .eml and .msg files. The format is rarely the hard part; the content is.
| What arrives | Why it is slow by hand | What the agent does |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry email, lines typed in the body | Free text, quantities buried in sentences | Reads quantity, unit and description per line |
| Excel or CSV list | Every customer has their own columns | Reads the rows as the customer laid them out |
| PDF schedule, sometimes scanned | Retyping page by page | Reads text and scanned PDFs; long requests run in parallel batches |
| The customer’s own article codes | Someone must remember what each means | Shows the code on the line and can expand it into a fixed set of catalogue lines |
| Competitor part numbers | Lookups in one person’s head | Maps them to your equivalent product families from your part number cross-reference data |
| A request in another language | Translating before searching | Matches it directly against your catalogue, whatever language the catalogue is in |
The same flow runs for three lines or several hundred.
Your company gets its own agent mailbox, an address such as yourcompany@erp-agent.com. Reps forward the enquiry there as it is or paste it into the web app. Your own systems can also submit requests through the REST API or MCP server.
It reads the body and every attachment, identifies the customer from your customer register and flags a delivery address that differs from the one on file.
For each line, the agent reads the abbreviations, dimensions, materials, part numbers and customer codes and identifies the right product in your catalogue. Candidates that contradict a stated size, voltage or rating class are pushed down, and an optional second check sends wrong matches back. A line with no good match goes on your placeholder code instead of a guess.
Customer pricing comes from the data and rules configured for your company; once your ERP is connected, that is its own price logic, discounts included. Your team can edit every price.
Your team reviews the draft, product codes are checked against the ERP, and the approved quote is written to your ERP, CRM or other system, or exported as a file. Your team sends it to the customer.
A mechanical contractor’s Excel take-off in their own columns: one size written without a unit, one line that is only their code and one line too vague to identify. Prices are left out here.
Excel take-off from a mechanical contractor, columns “Item | Description | Qty | Their ref”
| Requested | Proposed product | Qty | Match | Agent’s note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ball valve 25 PN16 lever | Ball valve DN25 PN16, lever handle | 10 | 93 | 25 read as DN25; PN10 versions pushed down |
| Zone valve 2-port 28mm 230V | 2-port zone valve 28 mm, 230 V | 4 | 91 | 28 mm and 230 V kept; 24 V version pushed down |
| Pressure gauge 0-6 bar 63 dia | Pressure gauge 0–6 bar, Ø63 mm, bottom connection | 6 | 77 | Connection not stated: marked, back-entry version kept as an alternative |
| Their ref MC-2281, no description | Automatic air vent 15 mm | 20 | 98 | Their own code, shown on the line; your team quoted this product for it before |
| Pipe insulation for the above | Your placeholder code | 1 lot | 0 | No size or thickness given: on your placeholder code, marked for review |
Illustrative example with sample data.
Every line carries a match score from 0 to 100, and lines under 80 are marked, so the rep starts where judgement is needed. The customer’s wording stays next to each proposed product. Open a line to read the agent’s reasoning, or ask for alternative products and take one.
Larger changes go through quote chat: add or remove rows, change quantities or prices. Each proposed edit is approved or rejected line by line, and the agent cannot send anything on its own.
When the rep sends, the agent learns: the next time a customer writes the same thing, it picks the same product. Knowledge of each customer’s shorthand stays in the company, and new reps can answer enquiries for ranges they do not know yet.
Reading a PDF is the easy part of an RFQ. The real work is knowing which of your products the customer means and what that customer pays. That is the work ERP Agent is built for.
Template-based document capture needs a template for every customer format. ERP Agent identifies the products from the customer’s own words, whatever the layout, so there is nothing to set up when a new customer sends their first RFQ.
OCR turns a document into text. ERP Agent goes on to check sizes, voltages and rating classes against your catalogue, proposes the product and shows why it chose it.
The draft carries the customer’s own price from the data and rules configured for your company, so the rep checks a quote rather than building one.
No replacement project. ERP Agent integrates with any ERP system, and approved quotes land in your ERP, CRM or other system.
A match score on every line, the customer’s wording next to each product, and nothing reaches a customer without your team’s approval.
Past quotes and every line your team sends teach the agent how each customer writes, so the knowledge stays in the company instead of in one rep’s head.
ERP Agent integrates with Business Central, SAP, NetSuite, Visma, IFS, Sage and any other ERP or CRM, and writes the approved quote straight into it. We set up the connection for your company during onboarding. See all ERP and email integrations.
| System | Type | Reads | Writes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dynamics 365 Business Central | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Sales quotes and sales orders |
| SAP S/4HANA | ERP integration | Products, business partners, customer prices | Sales quotations and sales orders |
| SAP Business One | ERP integration | Items, business partners, price lists | Sales quotations and sales orders |
| NetSuite | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Estimates (quotes) and sales orders |
| Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain | ERP integration | Released products, customers, trade agreement prices | Sales quotations and sales orders |
| Visma | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Quotes and sales orders |
| IFS | ERP integration | Sales parts, customers, customer prices | Sales quotations and customer orders |
| Monitor ERP | ERP integration | Parts, customers, customer prices | Quotes and customer orders |
| Infor M3 | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Quotations and customer orders |
| Exact | ERP integration | Items, customers, sales prices | Quotations and sales orders |
| AFAS Profit | ERP integration | Items, debtors, price agreements | Quotes and sales orders |
| Odoo | ERP integration | Products, customers, pricelists | Quotations and sales orders |
| Sage | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Sales quotes and sales orders |
| Jeeves | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Quotes and sales orders; confirmed values on purchase orders |
| Lemonsoft | ERP integration | Items, customers, customer prices | Quotes |
| Microsoft 365 / Outlook | Email integration | Customer requests in the agent mailbox; email history for training | Nothing is sent to customers without your team |
| Catalogue file / SFTP | File | Product catalogue from a file, from the first week | The reviewed quote or order as a file, ready to import into your system |
| Any other ERP or CRM | ERP or CRM integration | Products, customers and prices, through the connection we set up for your company during onboarding | Quotes and sales orders |
You do not need to wait for an integration. Load your catalogue as a file, have reps forward enquiries to the agent mailbox and start answering real RFQs the same week; the reviewed draft is exported as a file. Connect your ERP when you are ready. See the catalogue file and SFTP setup.
Read how LVI-WaBeK automates quote lines, put your own volumes into the quote cost calculator, or plan a test on your own RFQs with the AI quote agent pilot checklist.
ERP Agent is live with steel, HVAC and fastener distributors. Each trade writes RFQs in its own shorthand, and the agent reads them all.
Most RFQ software is buyer-side: it sends RFQs to suppliers and compares the bids. RFQ software for distributors does the seller’s side: it reads the customer’s email or attachment, identifies the right product for each line, adds the customer’s price and prepares the quote for a person to check. See RFQ vs RFP vs quotation.
A quotation request, or enquiry, is another name for an RFQ: the customer’s request, in their own words. The quotation is your answer: specific products from your range, with prices and terms. RFQ to quote automation covers the work in between.
Yes. Reps forward enquiries from Outlook to the company’s agent mailbox, and the draft is created automatically. With the Microsoft 365 and Outlook integration, past email can also teach the agent how your team has quoted before.
They overlap. Email to quote automation, sometimes called quotation email automation, covers RFQs whose lines need products identified and priced; email to ERP also covers purchase orders that become sales orders (order entry automation). ERP Agent handles both: for the same kind of request, the rep picks a quote or a sales order.
ERP Agent is built so your team stays in control. It prepares the draft, marks the lines to check and shows its reasoning; your team approves, and nothing reaches a customer without them.
A typical request takes the agent 3–8 minutes; a request of several hundred lines about half an hour. Fast mode handles requests of up to about 50 lines in 1–3 minutes. Your team then checks the marked lines and approves the quote instead of typing every line.
No. CPQ configures new products from rules and options. RFQ automation reads what the customer asked for in their own words and identifies the products already in your catalogue, which is the daily work of a distributor’s inside sales team. The two can run side by side. See CPQ vs AI quote automation.
ERP Agent integrates with Business Central, SAP, NetSuite, Visma, IFS, Sage and any other ERP or CRM. We set up the connection for your company during onboarding, and you can start with a catalogue file the same week. See all integrations, and pricing for how setup is scoped.
ERP Agent is GDPR-compliant. Models run with zero data retention. Before setup, we agree which data the agent needs and which systems it can access. See security and data.
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