How to Build a Winning RFQ Quote: Line Items, Discounts, and Financing Terms

What you will achieve

• Recognize every field on the quote form and know exactly what to type or select into it.
• Build a quote from your own offers instead of typing prices from scratch.
• Use discounts and charges correctly so totals are transparent.
• Attach the right financing terms when the buyer needs FI, Hire Purchase, or PayGo.
• Avoid quote rejections caused by contact information typed into the wrong field.

Step-by-step

1. At the top of the screen: your shop logo (or a gray store-icon placeholder if you have none) on the left, next to your shop name and address; on the right, "RFQ #{id}" and the label "Create quotation".
2. If the quote is already submitted and locked, a green banner reads "Quote submitted and locked" with a note that editing is disabled to protect the issued terms — every field below is grayed out and cannot be changed.
3. The first interactive section is the "Add item from your offers" bar: a searchable dropdown to choose a product from your own live offers, a "Qty" number box (defaults to 1), a "Rate (UGX)" number box, and a blue "Add" button with a plus icon.
4. When you pick a product from the dropdown, the Rate box auto-fills with that offer's price and a small hint appears underneath reading "Default price: UGX X" — you can still type over it if you want to quote a different rate.
5. Clicking "Add" appends a new row to the line items table below and resets the picker back to empty so you can add the next item.
6. Directly below the add-item bar, a yellow/orange warning banner with a shield icon reads: "Please don't add phone numbers, emails, or external links in item titles/descriptions or warranty notes. Communication stays on SolarMarket until award."
7. The line items table has these columns: Item (a text box for the item name, with a thumbnail if the product has one, plus a hidden reference to the offer it came from), Description (an optional textarea for details/specification), Qty, Rate, Tax (a dropdown: "No Tax" or "VAT 18%"), Amount (auto-calculated and read-only), and a small red × button at the far right of each row to remove that line.
8. As you type into Qty, Rate, or change the Tax dropdown on any row, the Amount for that row recalculates instantly (quantity × rate, plus tax if VAT 18% is selected).
9. Below the table, a Totals card shows: "Subtotal" (auto, sum of all line amounts before tax) and "Tax" (auto, sum of VAT across lines).
10. Still in the Totals card: a "Labour Charges" number box and an "Other Charges" number box — use these for installation labour or any extra charge that is not a line item — followed by their own running totals shown just below them.
11. Next, a "Discount" number box and, next to it, a "Mode" dropdown with two options: "Percent (%)" or "Absolute". Choose the mode first, since it decides whether the discount value you typed is treated as a percentage of the total or a flat UGX amount. The computed discount amount appears to the right in red, prefixed with a minus sign.
12. A horizontal rule separates this from the final "Total" line, shown in large bold text — this is the grand total after tax, charges, and discount, and it updates live as you change any of the fields above it.
13. Below the Totals card is a "Payment / Financing Terms" card with a header. The first field is "Financing Type", a dropdown: "Cash / Full payment" (the default), "FI (Bank/MFI)" (only shown if your account has eligible financing programs), "Hire Purchase", or "Pay As You Go (PayGo)".
14. If you select "FI (Bank/MFI)", an "FI Program" dropdown appears next to it, listing each eligible program by name, the financial institution's name, and its term in months.
15. If you select "Hire Purchase", a "Hire Purchase Plan" sub-section appears with three fields: "Down payment %", "Term (months)", and "Monthly instalment".
16. If you select "Pay As You Go (PayGo)", a "Pay As You Go Plan" sub-section appears with five fields: "Initial / deposit", "Periodic amount", "Frequency" (a dropdown: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly), "# Payments", and a free-text "PayGo note".
17. Switching the Financing Type dropdown shows or hides the FI/Hire Purchase/PayGo sub-sections instantly — only the one matching your current selection is visible at any time.
18. Below the financing card, three more fields sit in a row: "Lead time (days)" (a number), "Validity date" (a date picker — how long the quote is valid for), and "Warranty note" (a text box with a small info icon next to its label; hovering the icon shows a tooltip reminding you not to include phone numbers, emails, or links, since contact details only become visible after award).
19. Beneath the Warranty note field, a small hint line repeats: "Don't include phone numbers, emails, or links here."
20. The next row has two side-by-side text areas: "Payment Terms" (with a placeholder example like "50% advance payment, 50% on delivery within 7 days") and "Terms & Conditions" (optional — a note says "Leave blank to use platform default").
21. At the very bottom, three actions sit in a row: "Save Draft" (outline button with a floppy-disk icon) on the left, "Submit Quote" (solid blue button with a paper-plane icon) next to it, and "Back to RFQ" (a plain link) pushed to the far right.
22. If you type a phone number, email address, URL, "dot com"-style spelled-out domain, or a social-media handle into an item title, item description, or the warranty note, that field turns red (invalid) immediately as you type, with a message asking you to remove the contact detail — and submitting the form is blocked with a toast notification until every flagged field is fixed.
23. Why leaving Financing Type on "Cash / Full payment" is a real cost, not a neutral default: if the RFQ implies the buyer needs financing (a large system, a "how do I pay" question in the original request, a site type that usually needs Hire Purchase or PayGo), a cash-only quote gives that buyer nothing to act on. It is not that you "missed an opportunity" in the abstract — the buyer is very likely looking at a competing seller's quote that already has a Hire Purchase or PayGo plan filled in, and theirs is the one with an actual path to "yes".
24. Why the contact-info filter exists: it is not a form quirk, it enforces the same trust boundary the whole RFQ system depends on. Buyer contact is only ever supposed to unlock through the consent-gated reveal on the quote page (after your shop is verified and the buyer agrees) — never by writing a phone number into a text field. If that boundary were skippable from the quote form, the entire verification-and-consent system on the quote page would be pointless, which is exactly why the filter blocks submission rather than just warning you.

Seller checklist

• Line items match real offers with correct qty and rate (check the Amount column recalculates as expected).
• Discount Mode (Percent vs Absolute) is set intentionally, not left on the default.
• The matching Financing Type sub-section (FI Program / Hire Purchase / PayGo) is filled in when relevant.
• Lead time and Validity date are realistic, not placeholders.
• No phone number, email, or link is typed into any Item title/description or the Warranty note field.

Frequently Asked Questions