Create a Request: RFQ, RFP, or RFI
Choose the right request type, move through the wizard from Details to Review, publish, and start receiving structured, comparable bids.
What you'll learn
- Pick the right request type for what you are trying to decide
- Move through every wizard step and understand each decision
- Publish your request and know exactly what suppliers see
Most sourcing starts with an email. You write what you need, attach a spreadsheet, and send it to the handful of suppliers you already know. Replies come back over the next week in different formats, on different timelines, answering slightly different questions. Before you can compare anything, you are rebuilding it all by hand in a spreadsheet.
A Request on VEXORS replaces that. Every supplier you reach gets the same brief, the same line items to price, the same questions to answer, and the same deadline. When responses close, the bids are already comparable, because they were structured the same way from the start. And the criteria you set here are the criteria AI Scoring uses when the bids come in. Creating a request is the first step of every buyer cycle here. Everything that follows, receiving bids, AI Scoring, comparison, and the award, flows from the choices you make now.
Why this matters
Email is built for one-to-one conversation. Sourcing is multi-party and structured by nature: one brief to many suppliers, a consistent response format, and a record of who said what and when. A structured request gives you all three, plus an activity trail any manager or auditor can follow without reconstructing it from a folder of emails.
Choosing the right request type
The first choice you make is the request type. It is not cosmetic: it changes which steps appear in the wizard and what suppliers are expected to send back. Pick the one that matches what you actually need right now.
| Your situation | Use | What suppliers send back |
|---|---|---|
| I know exactly what I need and want competitive prices | RFQ | A price per line item against your Bill of Quantities, plus delivery terms. The most direct path to a comparable price. |
| I have a goal but I am open to how suppliers solve it | RFP | A proposed approach and a price for that approach. You evaluate on fit and method, not price alone. |
| I am not ready to buy. I want to understand the market first | RFI | Capabilities and information only, with no pricing commitment. You can convert it to an RFP later without starting over. |
An RFI that you later convert to an RFP carries your information forward, so exploring the market first never means redoing your work.
Before you start
A few things make the flow smoother if you have them ready:
- You have permission to create and publish requests. Team members can be granted the same Requests permission to create alongside you.
- If you will invite specific suppliers, have their names ready, or plan to find them in Discover during the wizard.
- If your team uses approval steps, know who your approvers are. Requests route to them before they publish.
- If you want to add a Questionnaire, decide your evaluation criteria in advance. Designing good questions on the spot is harder than it looks.
- If you want AI to draft the request for you, check that you have available AI credits.
Creating a request, start to finish
The wizard walks you through up to five steps: Details, Scope, Bill of Quantities, Questionnaire, and Review. An RFI has no Bill of Quantities, and the Questionnaire step is a Scale-plan feature. Your progress saves as you go, so you can leave and come back.
Open the wizard and pick a type
Go to Requests in the sidebar and select New Request. Choose your type from the three cards. The wizard opens at the Details step.
If you would rather start from a description, use AI Draft at the top of the wizard: describe what you need in plain language and VEXORS fills in a title, type, category, and a starting Bill of Quantities for you to refine. Each draft uses AI credits, and you can edit everything it produces.
Details: name the request and set who can see it
This step sets the identity of the request and has the biggest downstream effect.
- Title: name it specifically enough that a supplier knows in seconds whether it is relevant. "Steel pipes for Phase 2, Q3" beats "Materials".
- Category: VEXORS uses this to match your request to suppliers. On an open request, it decides who sees it. Choose the most specific category that fits.
- Currency and Submission Deadline: the currency every bid is quoted in (locked once published) and the date bidding closes.
- Supplier Visibility is the key decision here. Choose Open to all suppliers when you want broad market coverage and competitive pricing. Choose Invite specific suppliers when your vendor list is fixed or the request is commercially sensitive.
Set a realistic deadline. For a detailed RFQ in a specialist category, give suppliers a couple of weeks. Very short windows reduce both the number and the quality of bids.
Scope: describe the requirements and commercial terms
Scope captures what you need in words and the commercial conditions every bid must meet. Suppliers see all of it when they open your request.
Fill in your Requirements (specifications, standards, quality expectations), then the commercial terms: Delivery Location, Payment Terms, Incoterms for cross-border goods, and how long a quoted price stays valid. Use AI Suggest next to the category to classify the request automatically from your title and requirements.
Write the Scope as you would write real commercial terms, not as internal notes, because suppliers read it directly.
Bill of Quantities: list what suppliers will price
The Bill of Quantities is what makes bids comparable: every supplier prices the same items in the same units. Group items into sections, add each line with a description, quantity, and unit, and optionally set an estimated price that only you see, as your own budget guide.
The Build your Bill of Quantities guide covers sections, units, importance, and extra evaluation columns in full. Open it alongside this one if your list is detailed.
Questionnaire: evaluate beyond price (optional)
Scale If you need to judge suppliers on more than price, add a Questionnaire. Each question has an answer type and a weight, and you can mark any question as a Show Stopper. Answers feed into AI Scoring alongside the commercial score.
The Add a Questionnaire guide covers question types, weights, and show-stoppers in detail.
Review and publish
The Review step shows the complete request exactly as a supplier will see it. Read it that way before you commit. You have three choices:
- Publish Request publishes immediately. An open request appears in matching suppliers' opportunity feeds; a private one sends invitations to the suppliers you chose.
- Save Draft keeps your progress without showing the request to anyone.
- Submit for Approval appears when your team requires sign-off. The request holds until every approver has approved it, then publishes.
After publishing, you land on the request page with its status set to Published, an empty Bids tab waiting for responses, and the Invitations tab showing anyone you invited.
What suppliers see when you publish
For an open request, within minutes it appears at the top of the opportunity feed for suppliers whose categories match yours. They see your title, category, deadline, currency, and your company name, but never your estimated prices. For a private request, only the suppliers you invited are notified and can open it.
Either way, a supplier can ask a clarification question through the request before bidding. When you answer, every invited or confirmed supplier sees the same answer, so no one bids on different information.
What comes next
Once your request is live, the next move is to manage who can bid and then prepare to evaluate. The category you set on this request and on your company profile together decide which suppliers discover an open request, so a complete profile and a specific category produce a more relevant pool.
Making your request work
Following the steps correctly is not the same as running an effective request. A few things separate a strong request from a merely valid one:
- A title that names the category, rough quantity, and timeline lets a supplier decide to bid in seconds. Vague titles attract fewer bids.
- On an open request, a precise category matters more than it looks. A category set to "Manufacturing" reaches a wide but loosely relevant pool; "Structural steel fabrication" reaches the suppliers who can actually deliver.
- The deadline shapes behaviour. Too short, and specialist suppliers cannot check availability and price accurately, so you get fewer, weaker bids.
- Start with an RFI when you are entering a new category or market. Converting it to an RFP later keeps your work; cancelling and restarting a premature RFQ does not.
- Watch the Invitations tab after publishing. If confirmations are low as the deadline approaches, add more suppliers from Discover now rather than discovering the gap after bidding closes.
Next steps
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