NetSuite has a feature called Advance Procurement module.
This module includes the ability to enter a Request for Quote.
The Vendor Request for Quote allows the procurement to enter specific information related to their purchase like pricing, terms and other instructions. It will then send a notification to the selected vendors about the request which in turn, the vendors can enter their pricing for the indicated items.
NetSuite Advance Procurement, especially the Vendor Request for Quote did seem like the best route for one of our client’s requirements, until we encountered a blocker.
The Vendor Request for Quote is currently not scriptable!
As of this writing, the Vendor Request for Quote or “RFQ” is not supported via SuiteScript. This is still an enhancement in NetSuite.
You can deploy a Custom Code on the form but that is not enough if you have heavy requirements.
You cannot deploy an approval workflow, user event script and even create the RFQ record via SuiteScript.
Since it is critical to start the development work even if we have this roadblock, we designed a solution that would overcome this limitation, which is by using custom records.
See screenshot of how the record looks like.
The solution works out pretty well. It gave us more flexibility as to how we would like it to behave based on the client’s requirements.
In this solution, we were able to implement several customizations tailor-made for the client’s industry. This includes:
1) An approval workflow.
2) Alongside the workflow is a workflow action script that automatically creates the Request for Quote from the Requisition.
3) We built our own Vendor Awarding system that allows the user to evaluate and choose the winning vendor.
4) We added some validations on the record like date fields, line validation, etc.
5) We built a vendor selection mechanism that automatically populates the roster of vendors.
6) We created a custom page where the Vendor can enter their quoted price through the Vendor Center console.
If you would like to know more about this solution, feel free to schedule a free consultation by booking an appointment through this link.
LEACC Consulting is a team of NetSuite Certified Developers with IT experience solely dedicated to NetSuite technologies for eight years. We are experts in both SuiteScript 2.0 and SuiteScript 1.0. Our team has worked with 400+ NetSuite scripts and workflows combined. If you need some consulting help of how you can design your NetSuite scripts better, contact us by filling out this form or by commenting below.