ERP-driven sourcing for a discrete manufacturer.
A mid-market discrete manufacturer needed a better way to manage complex parts sourcing—without replacing their ERP or rewriting their business logic. They connected Purchaser via the REST API: their internal system triggers the RFQ, Purchaser handles vendor engagement and quote normalization, and webhooks write the results back for audit and downstream processing.
How the systems connect.
The customer owns all business logic. Purchaser acts as the sourcing execution layer—managing vendor engagement, quote normalization, and comparison generation via API.
Internal ERP
Customer system of record
Integration Service
Customer-owned logic
Purchaser
Sourcing platform
Vendor Engagement — managed by Purchaser
All vendors in the "Complex Parts" list are attached automatically and receive the RFQ on publish. Submissions are parsed into structured line items and presented as a side-by-side comparison. The procurement team negotiates directly in Purchaser, then awards.
Vendor A
Vendor B
Vendor C
Vendor D
What happens, step by step.
Nine discrete events connect the customer's internal workflow to Purchaser and back. The customer's code owns the trigger and the outcome—Purchaser owns everything in between.
Vendor communications stay in the customer's inbox
All back-and-forth with vendors—clarifications, scope questions, revised submissions—flows through the email account the customer controls. The raw communication trail exists independently of Purchaser, giving the procurement team primary source evidence for compliance reviews and audit inquiries.
An incoming order triggers a sourcing event
When a new order contains parts that meet the "Complex Parts" criteria, their internal system fires an RFQ event. The criteria are entirely customer-defined—Purchaser plays no role in this decision.
Creates the RFQ and attaches the vendor list
The integration service calls the Purchaser API to create a new RFQ, populates it with the order's line items, and attaches every vendor from the pre-configured "Complex Parts" vendor list. No manual setup required.
POST /api/v1/rfqs · POST /api/v1/rfqs/{id}/vendors RFQ published webhook confirms distribution to the ERP
Once the RFQ is sent to all vendors, a rfq.published event fires back through the integration service to the ERP. The customer's system records that competitive sourcing is actively in motion—not just triggered, but confirmed distributed to the vendor list.
webhook: rfq.published Sends the RFQ to all vendors automatically
Once the RFQ is published, Purchaser distributes it to every vendor on the list. Each vendor receives a structured response template via email.
Vendors submit their quotes
Vendors respond by email. Each submission is automatically parsed into structured line items—no manual extraction, no copy-pasting into spreadsheets.
Quote receipts fire audit webhooks
As each quote arrives, a quote.received webhook fires to the integration service. The event is written back to the internal system as a documented record that competitive quotes were solicited—satisfying their internal sourcing compliance requirements.
webhook: quote.received Reviews normalized quotes in the Purchaser UI
The procurement team opens Purchaser and reviews a side-by-side comparison of every submission. Quotes are already normalized—line items aligned, scope deviations flagged. The team goes back and forth with their preferred vendor directly in the conversation thread.
Awards the RFQ
The team selects the winning vendor and records the award in Purchaser. The decision is logged with full traceability—which vendor, which quote revision, at what price.
Award webhook resumes the internal workflow
A rfq.awarded event fires to the integration service, which writes the award data back to the customer's ERP. Their downstream business logic—PO creation, scheduling, and inventory updates—picks up from there automatically.
webhook: rfq.awarded Get Connected
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API documentation, authentication guides, and endpoint references are included with your account. Our integration team can help architect the connection for your environment.