Quotations and manual review

When a supplier replies to a quotation request, no one has to transcribe anything. The AI reads the email (and its attachments), extracts prices, lead times and terms, normalizes the units of measure and compares against the price history. Here we explain what happens with each response and what to do when it requires human intervention.

Quotation statuses

Status	Meaning
Pending	Not yet sent to the supplier.
Sent	The request went out by email; awaiting a response.
Received	A response arrived; the AI is processing it.
Incomplete	The supplier quoted only part of the items or data is missing.
Complete	Response processed and validated, ready to compare.
Awarded / Partially awarded	Won all the items (awarded) or only some (partially awarded).
Rejected	The supplier declined to quote.
Expired	The deadline passed without a response.
Manual review	The AI couldn't process it; it requires human review. If it only has low confidence in the extracted data, you review it yourself from the purchase (see Low-confidence quotations below).

Manual review (escalations)

A quotation is escalated to Manual Review when one of these situations occurs: the response is ambiguous or comes in a format that's hard to process, or the supplier asked a question instead of quoting. If the AI read the response but has low confidence in the extracted data, it is not escalated: you review it yourself from the purchase (see Low-confidence quotations below).

1. Open the escalation and see the supplier's original email alongside what the AI interpreted.

2. Write Manual Response to reply to the supplier: send a message answering their question (you can add attachments). You can copy anyone in the company (for example, the requestor) so they join the email thread, receive the conversation and can reply directly to the supplier.

3. If no reply is needed: Mark as Completed, when the quotation was already settled outside the system (it leaves the pending escalations list), or Dismiss Supplier, with the reason: the quotation is rejected and that supplier is not considered for this request.

4. When resolving you can leave resolution notes. If you replied to the supplier, the AI processes their answer like any other when it arrives.

The board shows statistics for total, pending and resolved escalations, with a filter by requestor.

Follow the conversation

All the email exchange with each supplier stays in the Inbox, where you can also reply directly, for example to ask for clarification before awarding.

Low-confidence quotations

When the AI reads a supplier's response but is not sure about the data it extracted (for example, an unreadable attachment or prices that don't add up), the quotation does not enter the comparison: it waits for your review. You see it in Awaiting Manual Action, in the To confirm queue, labelled Low confidence with the reason for the doubt, and you also get a notification with a direct link.

You review it yourself from the purchase's Quotations tab, with the Review button. There you can:

• Confirm the extracted data, correcting prices, quantities or items if needed. Once confirmed, the quotation enters the comparison.
• Reprocess the extraction with a correction (for example, "the quote is on page 2") if the AI did not find the items.
• Import the quotation manually, uploading the file or typing the prices, if the attachment cannot be read.
• Discard the quotation: it is rejected (if the supplier had already sent you a valid quotation before, that one comes back) and you can ask the supplier again with Resend request.

While it is pending, Sourced does not chase the supplier for missing data: the decision is yours. If you'd rather have the supplier send a clearer quotation, you can use Resend request without discarding it.

Requests with the items in Excel

When a request has more lines than the buyer's limit (50 by default; set in Settings → Email Templates), the request goes out with the items in an attached Excel file. The supplier can fill in that file or send their own quotation: both are processed.

• If they send the completed Excel back, Sourced places each row on its request line even if the supplier sorted or filtered the sheet, and the AI analyzes prices, delivery times, terms and comments as with any reply. Notes written above or below the grid and in added sheets are read too.

• If the supplier filled in an Excel file from before an item change (for example, a quantity that changed), the quotation is flagged for review and the lines that changed after sending are indicated.

• If they send the Excel back without filling it in, it doesn't count as a quotation.

• You can download the Excel file that was sent from the request's Emails tab, in the request email (Request items).