Sealed Bids, Supplier Contracts and PO Change Orders

An RFQ can carry a closing date and time. After it, a quote is refused wherever it comes from: the supplier portal, the supplier and mobile API, and a buyer recording a quote on a supplier’s behalf. If the close was unfair — a supplier’s connection failed an hour before — the buyer extends the deadline on the RFQ rather than slipping one quote in. A new deadline must be in the future, and the deadline can be changed until the bids are opened, never after. An RFQ with no deadline keeps accepting quotes.

Sealed bids go further. A sealed RFQ needs a deadline, and sealing cannot be switched on or off once a quote has arrived. Until the bids are opened, no buyer sees a quoted price on the RFQ, the quotation, the comparison, the approvals hub or the app, and nothing can be compared or awarded. After the deadline, someone with the approve RFQ permission opens the bids. That happens once, and the audit log records who opened them, when, and how many quotes there were. Separately, a quote past its valid-until date cannot be awarded — whole or item by item — until the supplier confirms or re-quotes.

In practice: a county water company tenders for 2,000 metres of HDPE pipe, sealed, closing Friday at 17:00. Four suppliers quote through the portal during the week; the buyers see that quotes have arrived but not their prices. A fifth supplier emails a quote at 17:20 and the buyer tries to enter it — AWRA refuses because the RFQ has closed. On Monday the head of procurement opens the bids, the audit log records four quotes opened, and the comparison runs. One quote was valid only until the previous Thursday, so it cannot be awarded until that supplier confirms its price.

A supplier contract records the items you have agreed to buy from one supplier and the unit price of each, the dates it runs between, an optional maximum quantity per item, an optional value ceiling for the whole contract and a renewal notice in days. Only an Active contract within its dates is in force. Viewing contracts needs view vendors; creating and editing them needs edit vendors. Open Supplier contracts from the procurement hub.

A call-off is how you buy against a contract. Enter whole-unit quantities for the items you need and AWRA raises a pending quotation at the contract prices, marked as the contract’s, with a requisition and RFQ behind it. That quotation is approved by the same steps as any other — approval rules and budget control included — and then becomes a purchase order. The call-off is refused if the contract is not in force today, if an item would exceed its remaining quantity, or if the total is more than the ceiling has left; pending call-offs already count towards both. When the same supplier quotes an item above its contract price on an ordinary quotation, the quotation shows a price-variance note before anyone approves it.

In practice: a hotel group agrees a twelve-month contract with its linen supplier — 400 KES per bath towel, at most 1,200 towels, and a ceiling of 900,000 KES. Each branch raises call-offs as it needs stock; each becomes a pending quotation the group procurement manager approves, then a PO. In month ten a call-off for 300 towels is refused because only 180 are left on the contract. Every morning AWRA checks contracts, so thirty days before the end — the renewal notice set on the contract — everyone who can edit vendors is warned, and on the day after the end date the contract is marked Expired.

An issued purchase order is never edited in place. On the order, the Change orders panel lets someone with create purchase orders propose a change to quantities (whole units), prices, lines or the delivery date, with a required reason. Everyone who can approve purchase orders is notified. A line cannot be cut below the quantity already received, a partly received line cannot be removed, and a closed, completed, paid or cancelled order cannot be changed at all. A newer proposal replaces one still waiting.

Whoever proposed the change cannot approve it. The approver sees each changed line before and after and the old and new totals. If the change increases spend, only the increase is checked against the budget, and where budget control is set to block it is refused unless someone with the override permission gives a reason. If the order changed after the proposal, approval is refused so one change is never applied over another. On approval the order’s lines, total, balance and delivery date update, its revision number goes up, the supplier’s acknowledgement is cleared because they accepted the old order, and — with purchase-order emails on — the revised order is sent to them again.

In practice: a contractor’s PO for 500 bags of cement at 780 KES has had 200 bags delivered when the site engineer cuts the order. The buyer proposes 150 bags — refused, because 200 have already arrived — then proposes 300 with the reason “Phase 2 slab redesigned.” The procurement manager approves it; the PO becomes revision 1, the supplier’s acknowledgement is cleared and the revised order goes out. A month later the supplier raises the price to 820 KES; that change is an increase, so it passes the budget check before it can be applied.