Most RFQ templates are either too bare — a part number and "please quote" — or too heavy, borrowed from an enterprise procurement checklist with sections no small shop needs. This one's built for the actual size of request a 10–200 person manufacturer sends: enough structure that nothing important gets left out, nothing more.
The template
RFQ #: [your reference number]
Date issued: [date]
Response needed by: [specific date, not "ASAP"]
PART / JOB
Part name or description:
Part number / drawing revision:
Attached: [drawing / spec sheet / sample — attach, don't just reference]
QUANTITY
Quantity requested:
Quantity breaks to quote (if applicable): [e.g. 100 / 500 / 1,000]
SPEC
Material:
Tolerance:
Finish / coating (if applicable):
Required certifications (if applicable):
DELIVERY
Target delivery date:
Delivery location:
FOB terms (origin / destination):
COMMERCIAL
Payment terms requested:
Tooling or setup charges: [ask suppliers to break these out separately]
CONTACT
Questions to: [name, email, phone]
Why each section is there
Quantity breaks matter more than people expect — if there's any chance you'll order more or less than the base quantity, ask for tiered pricing up front. Going back to ask "what if we ordered 1,000 instead of 500" after the quote is in means a second round-trip that a single extra line would've avoided.
Tolerance is the field most often left off, and the single biggest source of quotes that come back wrong — either overpriced because the supplier quoted to a tighter-than-needed standard process, or underspecified because they assumed a looser tolerance than you actually need.
Tooling and setup charges, broken out separately, matter because otherwise they get folded into the unit price, which makes comparing quotes across suppliers with different quantity assumptions genuinely misleading — a supplier amortizing tooling over 500 units looks cheaper per-unit than one amortizing over 100, even if the total job cost is identical.
Making it a repeatable process, not a one-off document
A template solves the "what do I include" problem for a single RFQ. It doesn't solve the bigger one: making sure every RFQ your team sends — not just the ones someone remembers to use the template for — follows this same structure, and that responses come back in a comparable format instead of three different ones.
That's the gap RFQTrace closes — the same structured fields every time, sent through the system instead of copy-pasted into an email, with suppliers responding through a form that captures the same data back. Start a free 60-day pilot if copy-pasting this template into every email is starting to feel like its own small chore.