Vendor Sourcing

Vendor Sourcing is where ACME Creative Agency sends requests for quotes, compares bids, awards the work, and manages all the paperwork — in one place. Think of it as a private bidding room for each project need.

Key Features

• Requests board: Every sourcing need lives as a named request — for example, "Q4 Brand Activation Photographer" — with a category, location, event date, and an internal budget note vendors never see.
• Vendor finder: Search your contacts by keyword, city, or state. Vendors are added as draft invites — nothing goes out until you're ready.
• Multi-channel invites: Send by email, SMS, or both. Preview and edit every message before it leaves, or bulk-send all drafts at once.
• Bid tracking: See each vendor's amount, availability, and notes in one table. Shortlist or reject bids as you narrow down, then award the winner.
• Next-steps hub: After awarding, one-click actions let you notify the winner, pass on the others, create a client quote, place a booking order, and draft a vendor agreement.
• Order management: Track the confirmed booking with a PO number, dates, vendor notes, and a status from draft through confirmed.
• Documents: Vendors upload proposals via a private link; you can attach agreements and confirmations — all stored and downloadable from the request.

How to Use

1. Click New request and fill in the title, category, scope (what vendors see), location, event date, and a respond-by deadline. Put the budget in the internal Budget note field under More options — vendors never see it.
2. Open the request and click Add vendors. Filter by keyword or city, select contacts, and choose email, SMS, or both. They land in the list as drafts.
3. Click Send all drafts to dispatch everything, or Preview and send on any row to review that message individually first.
4. Watch the Invite and Bid columns update as vendors submit quotes. Use Shortlist or Reject to manage the field; send a Reminder to anyone who hasn't replied.
5. Click Award on the winning bid. The request moves to Awarded and the next-steps panel appears.
6. From next steps: notify the winner, pass on the others, create a client quote, and place the booking order — each is a single button.
7. Upload or download supporting documents from the Documents section inside any request.
8. Click Close this request when done. You can reopen it any time.

Tips

• The scope description goes to every vendor as written — keep client name and budget out of it.
• The Vendors tab shows every contact you've ever invited and lets you add them to a new request in seconds.
• Vendor proposals uploaded through their private link appear automatically in Documents — no chasing email attachments.