An Inquiry in QMS is a list of materials with required quantities and, is prepared for the purpose of obtaining prices and delivery dates from one or more suppliers. Purchase orders are normally then placed with the supplier offering the best price/delivery combination although, in QMS purchase orders can be created without the need to generate an inquiry if required.

Inquiries can be generated by manually entering the material required or, automatically from the Bill of Materials. The facility to automatically generate inquiries is one of the major benefits of using QMS.

When automatically generating inquiries, the following options are available:

• Select from one or more Bills of Material for calculation of the quantities required.
• Filter on specific material types, stock type, or even on a phrase in the stock code description to generate inquiries for a particular range of materials.
• Deduct quantities already out on inquiry or already purchased when calculating outstanding quantities required.
• Add a percentage mark-up during the calculation process.
• Use rounding for material supplied in fixed quantities.

The facility to automatically generate inquiries saves time and reduces errors, and a complete audit trail on all inquiries generated is maintained by the system.