The quotes are in, you've picked one, the PO is out. Most shops treat the RFQ as finished there.
The half hour after the award is worth more than a lot of what came before it.
Tell the ones who didn't win
The single most skipped step in small-manufacturer purchasing, and the cheapest thing on this list.
Two suppliers spent real estimator time on your job. Saying nothing costs you nothing today and costs you response rate over a year — every unanswered quote is evidence that quoting you doesn't pay.
A message this short works:
Thanks for quoting — we've placed this one elsewhere. Your number was competitive; the lead time was the deciding factor. Keep them coming, I'll have more of this type next month.
Two sentences. What it buys: a supplier who quotes your next RFQ promptly, and who tells you honestly when they can't.
Be careful how much you tell them
There's a line worth naming, because getting it wrong is worse than saying nothing.
Telling a supplier why they lost, in general terms, is good practice. Telling them the winning number is not — you've given away another supplier's pricing, and taught this one that their number will be shared next time too. Both make your future RFQs worse.
"Lead time was the deciding factor" is useful and safe. "They were at 4.20" is neither.
Write down why you chose
One line, where the RFQ lives:
Awarded to Apex — 6% higher than Titan, but Titan quoted 9 weeks against our 6.
That answers, six months from now, the question that always comes up: why are we using this supplier for this part? It also protects you if the job goes wrong and someone asks whether the cheapest option was considered.
Twenty seconds, and it's the only record that will exist.
Close the ones you're not awarding at all
Some RFQs die — the customer doesn't proceed, the job gets pulled, priorities change. Those suppliers are still waiting.
Tell them, and mark the RFQ closed at your end. Otherwise it sits in your open list forever, aging, quietly making your "what's outstanding" view less trustworthy every week. A status list with dead entries stops being read.
Record what actually happened afterwards
The award isn't the last data point. The useful one arrives weeks later: did it ship on the date they promised?
Promised date versus actual date, per supplier, is what turns "they seem reliable" into something you can act on. It costs nothing to capture — both dates already exist — and it's the difference between choosing suppliers on price and choosing them on what they deliver.
Why this is the highest-return half hour in the process
Everything before the award is about this job. Everything in that half hour is about every job after it.
Suppliers who hear back quote faster next time. Written reasons stop you relitigating decisions you already made well. Closed RFQs keep your open list honest. Delivery records make the next award better than this one.
None of it is urgent, which is exactly why it doesn't happen — and why the shops that do it are noticeably easier to buy for a year later.