Quotes
Comparison of quotes: several offers on one grid, item by item, ready for the committee
The comparison of quotes puts the offers from one tender on a common grid: same units, same scope, same terms. Compare aligns comparable items, isolates what is not comparable (an option included on one side only, ancillary charges buried in the total) and quantifies the gap item by item. You choose with a defensible table, not a hunch.
The problem
Two quotes never compare line by line
Each supplier answers in its own format, with its own units, breakdown and options. The comparison table is built by hand, and it often compares what is not comparable: a price per kilo against a price per pack, a lump sum against a rate, an all-inclusive offer against a bare one.
Scopes that do not overlap
One prices delivery and installation, the other leaves them as options. The cheapest on total is sometimes the most expensive once scope is equalised.
Different units
Per kilo for one, per pack for the other; per hour here, lump sum there. Without explicit conversion, the “unit price” column means nothing.
A table that costs three days
Re-keying five eighty-line quotes, aligning items, hunting hidden charges: the comparison arrives after the decision date, or incomplete.
The mechanism
What Compare aligns, and what it refuses to align
Compare starts from quotes already read line by line. For each tender it builds a grid: the list of expected items, taken from your purchase request or specification, with the reference unit and quantity. Every line of every quote is attached to the item it covers. A different description for the same article, a manufacturer reference against an internal one, an abbreviation: the attachment is made and displayed, never guessed silently.
On this grid, prices are brought to the same unit and the same scope. A rebate expressed as a percentage by one supplier and as a net price by another is converted; freight, commissioning or take-back charges are pulled out of the total and given their own line. What only one supplier priced appears as a separate item, with a note of who included it and who did not.
The result is a table where every cell can be traced: clicking a price opens the original quote line, on the page where it was read. The gap between offers is quantified per item and in total at equal scope. Compare does not rank suppliers and does not recommend a winner: it makes the comparison fair, and you decide.
What it aligns, what it detects, what it leaves to the buyer.
What comes back
Six things a hand-built table lets through
Non-equivalent scopes
An item present in one offer, absent from the others, or covered by a service named differently.
Options included on one side only
Extended warranty, training, first-year maintenance: included here, billed separately there.
Different units of measure
Piece, lot, linear metre, tonne: every price is brought to the tender’s reference unit.
Ancillary charges buried in the total
Transport, packaging, eco-contribution, handling fees: isolated and compared separately.
Asymmetric revisions
A firm price for one year against a price revisable each quarter: the clause is flagged next to the amount.
Rebates on different bases
Rebate on gross, on net, conditional on volume: the base is made explicit before comparing.
The journey
From tender to table, in three steps
Nothing to install on the supplier side, nothing to change in your tender. Quotes arrive as they do today; what changes is what happens next, and every step leaves a trace you can consult.
- 01
Attach the quotes to the tender
Answers arrive by email or upload; they are attached to the purchase request and read line by line, whatever their format.
- 02
Build the common grid
Expected items, reference unit and quantity are set. Every line of every quote is attached to them, with the reason for the attachment visible.
- 03
Read the table and decide
Gaps per item, total gap at equal scope, items priced on one side only. The buyer chooses, asks for a complement or renegotiates one precise item.
What changes
A decision that holds up
The comparison stops being an individual spreadsheet nobody can verify. Every figure points to its source, every conversion is visible, every missing item is named. In the procurement committee, the question “why that one?” has a written answer. In front of the supplier not selected, too: the gap is on the line, not in an impression.
The time spent changes in nature: no more re-keying or manual alignment, but a reading of the table and a negotiation targeted at the items where the gap is real. A tender with three suppliers and one with ten ask the same effort of the buyer. And the history grows: proposed prices, selected or not, remain searchable for the next tender, with the grid that was used to decide.
The use case: the same buyer, more tenders properly investigated.
Compare
Compare supplier offers, objectively.
Puts the offers on a single grid: same units, same scopes, same terms. Aligns the comparable items and isolates the ones that are not.
A comparison you can defend in committee, without spending three days on it.
What Compare detects
- Scopes that are not equivalent
- Options included on one side only
- Different units of measure
- Ancillary charges buried in the total
- Asymmetric revisions and discounts calculated on different bases
Nothing is lost. Everything can be checked, everything can be proven.
- The contract clause and the invoice line, highlighted side by side.
- Every extracted value stays linked to the exact place in the document where it was read.
- The same case produces the same decision, today as in six months: the rules are applied deterministically.
- No discrepancy is set aside in silence. Anything that matches no rule is raised, with its reason.
- The agent records what it did, in the order it did it: who, what, how much, when.
Frequently asked questions
Does Compare recommend a supplier?
No. It makes the offers comparable and quantifies the gaps item by item, at equal scope. The choice remains the buyer’s, who may weigh criteria the quote does not carry: lead time, quality, dependency. Compare rules out no offer on its own.
What happens when an item exists in only one offer?
It appears as a separate item, with a note of the suppliers who priced it and those who did not. The total gap is given at equal scope, and at full scope if you decide to include that item. Nothing is melted into a total.
Are quotes in different currencies or languages comparable?
Yes. Lines are read in their original language and currency, then brought to those of the tender, with the rate and conversion date displayed. A description in English and its equivalent in French are attached to the same item, with the attachment visible.
How do I start on a tender in progress?
By uploading the quotes received and the purchase request that triggered them. The table is produced on those documents, with attachments and conversions displayed, and every cell traceable to its source line. A forty-five-minute demo can be run on one of your own tenders rather than on an example.
Measurable impact in every environment
More than 5 million procurement documents analysed
Between 1 and 7% of margin recovered
on the scope analysed
From 15 to 45% of time given back to teams, per FTE
depending on the scope and on data maturity
Zylio fits into your existing ecosystem.
The ERP runs the process. Zylio handles the exception and recovers the value that escapes it: invoices without a purchase order, line-by-line price discrepancies, duplicates and overbilling, off-contract spend.
Your data under high security.
Zylio meets the most demanding standards, and nothing is committed without your approval.
- Certifications
- Hosting
- Encryption
- Access
Read next
- Compare supplier quotesThe pillar: the comparison approach, from tender to decision.
- AI analysis of quotesWhat the AI reads and straightens out in a quote before any comparison.
- Quote analysisThe prices of one quote confronted with history and supplier price lists.
- Book a demoA comparison table produced live on one of your tenders.
See what this looks like on your own data
Twenty minutes, on a spend category of your choosing. We show you what the agents detect, with the evidence behind it.
- No commitment, on your own data
- Result in 3 weeks
- 20 minutes, no sales pitch
- Your data stays hosted in France
- No change of tool or process