You priced it once. You will supply it for a year. Consumables on an annual schedule, requoted against dozens of times while the cost of supplying them moves underneath. The risk is not winning the tender. The risk is not noticing when it stops being worth having.
An annual consumables schedule is priced in one pass against live cost, with the lines you can safely hold and the ones you cannot visible while you are still deciding.
The same basket is ordered against dozens of times before the term ends. Each one duplicates the schedule rather than being rebuilt from a blank page.
The price is fixed and the cost is not. Cost sits against sell on every line, so a schedule going underwater is seen rather than discovered at year end.
Contract supply inverts the usual problem. The quote is not the hard part, the twelve months after it are: the price is fixed, the cost is not, and margin erodes quietly unless every line carries its cost next to its sell.
This is what arrives. Not a form, not a structured order. An email written by somebody in a hurry.
Annual consumables schedule: pricing request
Good morning, We are putting the consumables schedule out for the coming year and need pricing held for twelve months on the following: - 2 400x nitrile examination glove medium, box of 100 - 1 800x nitrile examination glove large, box of 100 - 3 000x gauze swab 10x10cm sterile, pack of 5 - 900x syringe 3ml luer lock, box of 100 - 600x IV cannula 20G, box of 50 Please indicate which lines you can hold for the full term and which you would want to review at six months. Anele, Midrand Private Hospital
Every number here is a commitment. The question at the end is the one that decides whether this contract is profitable in month nine.
Cost sitting next to sell
Every line carries its cost, so the lines you can safely hold for twelve months and the ones you cannot are visible while you are still deciding.
The schedule as one document
Five lines and five quantities priced in one pass against live cost, rather than assembled from five separate lookups.
Requoted without being rebuilt
The next call-off duplicates the schedule and reprices it, which is the transaction that happens dozens of times before the term ends.
Erosion visible while it matters
When a supplier's cost moves, the margin on the affected lines moves with it on screen, rather than surfacing in a year-end review.
From a list of parts to money in the bank. Six steps, and nothing is typed twice. The quote becomes the order, the order becomes the invoice, and the figures cannot disagree.
The enquiry arrives as a list of parts
A customer sends a request, usually as prose with part numbers buried in it. It lands in one inbox and is read into lines the catalogue recognises, rather than retyped by whoever picks it up.
Priced against stock you actually hold
Each line is checked against the floor: what is available, what is already allocated to another order, and what is in transit. A quote does not promise a part that is spoken for.
What is short goes onto a purchase order
A shortfall raises a purchase order against the supplier who carries that part, with its lead time on it. The customer is told a real date rather than an optimistic one, and receiving closes the loop when it lands.
The quote goes out, and is chased
A quote that nobody follows up is a discount you already gave away. Quotations carry an expiry and sit on a follow-up list, so the ones going cold are visible while there is still something to save.
Accepted, it becomes an order to pick
The accepted quote turns into an order with the same lines and the same prices, stock is allocated against it, and it drops into the picking queue. Nothing is captured a second time.
Despatched, invoiced, and watched until paid
Proof of delivery closes the order and raises the invoice off the same lines. From there it sits on the aged debtor until it is settled, so what is owed and how long it has been owed is one number, not a spreadsheet.
One line, priced for a year, with the cost in plain sight. Contract supply inverts the usual problem. Quoting is not the hard part. The twelve months afterwards are, because the price you agreed cannot move and the cost of supplying it will.
- Cash / ad hocR 112.0039%Retail, off schedule
- Trade accountR 95.0028%Held against the part
- Schedule, 12 monthsR 88.0023%The price you are committing to
- Volume break, 2 000+R 81.0016%Applied at the quantity quoted
- CostR 68.00The number that will move under you
The commitment is a decision, not a hope
Every line carries its cost, so the lines you can safely hold for the full term and the ones you would rather review at six months are visible up front.
Erosion shows while it matters
When a supplier’s cost moves, the margin on the affected lines moves with it on screen, rather than surfacing in a year-end review.
Held and bought-in behave differently
What you carry and what you import behave differently over a year-long term, and the quote should say which line is which.
One statement across many call-offs
Dozens of small deliveries against one schedule still resolve into one account and one ageing position.
Medical & Laboratory Supply, Midrand. 30 catalogue lines, with the quotes, orders, purchase orders and debtor book behind them.
Turnaround, win rate, days sales outstanding and supplier on-time, which is the number that decides whether you can hold a price.
This trade does not lose money on one big thing. It loses it four small ways, every week, and none of them shows up until the year end.
The schedule that went underwater in month nine
A price held for twelve months against a cost that moved in three. Nobody looked until the year end, and the contract had been losing money for two quarters.
Cost sits against sell on every line, so the erosion is visible while there is still time to act on it.
The call-off retyped every month
The same basket rebuilt by hand dozens of times, and each rebuild is a chance to fat-finger a quantity or drop a line.
The previous document is duplicated and repriced, so the basket that was agreed is the basket that ships.
The contracted line that ran out
Running out on a schedule is not an inconvenience, it is a breach, and it is usually the imported line with the longest lead time.
Reorder points sit on contracted lines with the supplier’s real lead time behind them, so the order is raised in time.
The institution at a hundred and twenty days
Terms are long by default in this trade, and long terms drift longer until the oldest bucket is a quarter of the contract.
What is owed and how long it has been owed sits on one screen, current through ninety days and beyond, in rand.
Nothing runs out quietly. Reorder points are held against real movement, so a shortfall is raised as a purchase order before it becomes a lost order.
Held against actual movement, rather than a number somebody set two years ago and never revisited.
The date the customer is given comes from the supplier who carries that part, not from optimism.
Stock booked in lands against the order that was waiting for it, and the short line on that job clears itself.
The screens on this page are the live platform, captured as it renders. The company, its customers, suppliers and every figure are generated for demonstration. No client of ours appears anywhere on this page.
Nothing that already works has to move. The finance team keeps their ledger, the branches keep their stock, and the counter keeps its speed. This sits over the top of all of it.
Your accounting package
Sage, Pastel, Xero or whatever the year end runs on stays where it is. Invoices raised here reach it, and the bookkeeper is not asked to learn a new ledger.
Your branches
Stock sits per branch and is quoted per branch, with what is available at the counter separated from what is sitting at another store or already in transit.
Your part numbers
Your own code, the supplier's and the OEM number all sit on the same line, so nobody has to translate between them mid-enquiry.
Your terms
Credit limits, payment terms and settlement discounts are held against the account and enforced when the order is taken, not discovered at month end.
Your counter
A walk-in is served at the same speed as before. The system is behind the counter rather than in front of it.
Your reps
What a rep quoted, what it was worth and whether it landed is on the account rather than in their own notebook.
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