If a NetSuite account is set up around a single primary vendor for each item, it can be difficult to compare a new domestic option against the overseas vendor already on file. NetSuite already has tools to support a more flexible sourcing model, but those tools may not already be enabled or configured in every account. This post covers how NetSuite’s Multiple Vendors, Request for Quote, and Purchase Contracts functionality work together to help you build and compare a broader vendor base without a lot of manual work.
What This Actually Involves
At its core, this involves three separate but related pieces of NetSuite functionality. Multiple Vendors lets you associate more than one vendor with a single item record and track vendor-specific details like item codes and pricing. Request for Quote lets you formally solicit and compare pricing from vendors side by side. And Purchase Contracts stores the negotiated pricing and terms that come out of that process. These features work well together, but each operates independently (so, for example, you don’t need vendors set up on an item before you can send them an RFQ).
Right now, a lot of distributors are handling this informally. Someone emails two or three suppliers, drops the quotes into a spreadsheet, and picks one. That works fine when you’re occasionally shopping around, but it breaks down once you’re trying to actively manage risk across dozens or hundreds of SKUs that used to have a single source. Setting item records up with multiple vendors gives you a permanent record of viable sources for a product, along with vendor-specific pricing and item codes. RFQ then gives you a repeatable way to reach out to vendors and get comparable bids whenever conditions change, rather than starting from scratch every time.
Setup
These are separate features, so you’ll need to enable Multiple Vendors if you want to maintain multiple suppliers on item records. RFQ has its own prerequisites: Request for Quote and Purchase Contracts. Purchase Contracts itself requires the Purchase Orders feature. You don’t need Multiple Vendors enabled to use RFQ.
To add multiple vendors to items, go to Setup > Company > Setup Tasks > Enable Features, open the Items & Inventory subtab, and check the box for Multiple Vendors.
To use Request for Quote, go to the same Enable Features page, but open the Transactions subtab instead. Check the box for Request for Quote. Purchase Contracts is required for Request for Quote, so make sure that box is checked too.
Enabling these features is just the first step. Multiple Vendors still requires setting up vendor information on each item record, and RFQ has its own workflow to learn once it’s turned on. It’s worth double-checking that both Request for Quote and Purchase Contracts are turned on, since it’s easy to enable one and miss the other.
Setting Up Vendor Records
Once Multiple Vendors is enabled, the setup happens at the item level. Open an item record in edit mode, go to the Purchasing/Inventory subtab, and click into the Vendors subtab underneath it.
From there, add each vendor you want associated with that item. For each one, you can enter a vendor code, currency, a pricing schedule if you use quantity-based pricing, and the purchase price you pay that vendor for the item. You can also designate one vendor as the Preferred Vendor, which can default on purchasing transactions and appears as the preferred vendor in relevant item views. This is optional, and the preferred vendor doesn’t have to be the cheapest one, it’s just whichever vendor you want defaulting day to day.
This is also the point where a lot of distributors realize how much manual tracking they’ve been doing outside the system. Instead of a shared spreadsheet of backup suppliers, each item can carry its own list of vendors and associated purchasing information. That information can then be used on the forms and transactions where the item appears, giving purchasing teams a more consistent source of vendor and pricing information.
Using RFQ to Compare Vendors
Once you’ve identified the vendors you want to evaluate, RFQ gives you a structured way to compare their responses. You can select vendors directly on the RFQ, whether or not they’re already associated with the item through Multiple Vendors.
Go to Transactions > Purchases > Enter Requests for Quote to start one. You’ll add the items you’re sourcing, select which vendors should receive the request, and set the bid open and close dates. If you use quantity pricing tiers, you can request pricing at different order volumes in the same RFQ, which is useful if you’re testing whether a new domestic vendor can hit the same price breaks your overseas vendor offers at scale.
Once vendors respond, their bids come back into the RFQ record, and you can review the responses in the Awards tab and use the Compare function to evaluate vendors side by side. Checking the Award box on a line item and saving the RFQ creates a purchase contract for that vendor, populated with their response, so the quoted pricing and terms don’t have to be manually re-entered into a new contract. Purchase orders that reference the purchase contract then use the contract’s pricing automatically.
Where Purchase Contracts Fit In
It’s worth being clear on how these three pieces connect. Multiple Vendors is where you maintain vendor and pricing information at the item level. RFQ is how you formally solicit and compare bids from vendors, whether or not they’re already on the item record. Awarding a bid on an RFQ is what creates the purchase contract behind the scenes, one per vendor, populated from their response. That contract defines the negotiated pricing, terms, and delivery schedules for purchases within a defined period. From there, a purchase order needs to reference that contract for the contracted pricing to apply. The contract itself doesn’t automatically attach to every future PO for that vendor.
Wrapping Up
Reshoring isn’t just a sourcing decision, it’s a data problem. Distributors that can see their available vendors for an item, along with current pricing and purchasing information, are in a much better position to react when the next tariff announcement or supply disruption hits. NetSuite already has tools to support that kind of sourcing model, but they may not be enabled or configured in every account.
If you’re not sure whether your NetSuite account is set up to handle multiple vendors per item or run an RFQ, the team at SuiteRep is happy to take a look at where things stand and help you get it configured.