Overview

When purchasing, you need to compare quotes from multiple suppliers. Manual organization is error-prone and inefficient. Claude can help you extract information from quotation files in different formats, generate a unified price comparison table, and calculate the optimal solution.

Use Cases

Office supplies procurement comparison
Supplier selection decisions
Service quote comparison
Budget planning and cost control

Steps

Step 1: Collect Quotation Data

Organize all supplier quotation information.

I have the following supplier quotes:
- ~/quotes/supplier_a.xlsx
- ~/quotes/supplier_b.pdf
- ~/quotes/supplier_c.csv
Please extract from each file:
- Supplier name
- Product name/model
- Unit price
- Minimum order quantity
- Delivery time
- Other terms

Step 2: Standardize Product Names

Unify different names used by different suppliers for the same product.

Different suppliers use different product names, please standardize:
- "A4 printing paper", "A4 paper", "Copy paper A4" -> "A4 Printing Paper"
- "Ballpoint pen 0.5mm", "Gel pen 0.5" -> "Gel Pen 0.5mm"
Identify identical products and unify naming, list all standard product names

Step 3: Generate Comparison Table

Create a horizontal comparison table.

Please generate price comparison table ~/quotes/comparison.xlsx:
Rows: Each product
Columns: Supplier A Price | Supplier B Price | Supplier C Price | Lowest Price | Lowest Price Supplier
- Use conditional formatting to highlight the lowest price in each row
- Add a total row
- If a supplier doesn't have a certain product, display "Not quoted"

Step 4: Comprehensive Scoring

Consider not just price, but score based on multiple factors.

Please add a comprehensive scoring table:
Scoring dimensions:
- Price (40% weight): Lowest price gets 100 points, others proportionally
- Delivery time (30% weight): Fastest gets 100 points
- Minimum order quantity (20% weight): Lowest gets 100 points
- Historical cooperation (10% weight): Supplier A 100 points, Supplier B 80 points, Supplier C 60 points
Calculate each supplier's comprehensive score for each product, recommend the best choice

Step 5: Procurement Recommendation

Generate specific procurement recommendation report.

Based on comparison results, generate procurement recommendations:
- If purchasing from only one supplier, which one is recommended? What's the total cost?
- If choosing the lowest price for each product (distributed procurement), what's the total cost? How much is saved?
- Actual procurement plan considering minimum order quantity constraints
- Risk warnings (such as the risk of complete dependence on a single supplier)
Save as ~/quotes/recommendation.md

Tips

Price is not the only consideration. Also pay attention to quality, delivery time, after-sales service, etc. The lowest price is not necessarily the best choice.

Save historical records of each price comparison to analyze price trends and provide basis for future negotiations.

Common Questions

Q: What if supplier quote formats vary greatly? A: Claude can extract information from different formats (Excel, PDF, email body). If it's an image or scanned document, OCR recognition is needed first.

Q: How to handle tiered pricing? A: Tiered pricing (different prices for different purchase quantities) can create multiple columns, such as "100 units price", "500 units price", "1000 units price", and select based on actual needs.

Q: Can shipping costs be considered? A: Yes. Tell Claude each supplier's shipping cost or shipping calculation rules, and it will calculate the total cost including shipping for comparison.