Compare three supplier quotes side by side
Give Claude the quotes for the same part. It lines them up on price, tooling, lead time, minimum order, payment and delivery terms, and says what is missing before you can choose.
FullPurchasingWhen you need it
Set it up4 steps
Open the Claude desktop app and sign in with the Claude account you use for work. On a personal Free, Pro or Max plan, chats can be used for training unless you switch off SettingsPrivacyHelp improve Claude.
No account yet? Ask your manager.
Where things are in Claude
- CustomizeConnectors In Claude's left sidebar: connect your email and files.
- /schedule Type it in a new Cowork task to run a prompt on a schedule.
- Scheduled In Claude's left sidebar: what runs, to pause or change it.
- Once for the whole company: your Microsoft admin approves Claude's Microsoft 365 connector and turns on its write tools, so Claude can save drafts and files. If connecting asks for an admin's approval, this is still to do: send them this step.
- Inside a OneDrive folder called Quotes, save the quotes for one part in a folder named after it, with a note of the yearly volume.
- Connect Microsoft 365 under CustomizeConnectors (for OneDrive and SharePoint), open Cowork, and paste the prompt with that folder's name.
- Check every figure against the quote it came from before you decide. The choice stays yours.
Set this up on your computer: the Claude desktop app runs it.
The prompt
- Compare the supplier quotes in the folder I name under this prompt, inside my "Quotes" folder. Write the comparison as a new Excel file in that folder.
- 1. One column per supplier, and one row each for: unit price and the quantity it is for, price breaks, tooling cost and who owns the tool, lead time for samples and for series, minimum order quantity, payment terms, delivery terms (Incoterms), how long the quote is valid, and any conditions they added.
- 2. Convert nothing: keep each figure in the quote's own currency and unit, and mark where they differ.
- 3. Under the table, say which quote costs least over a year at the volume in the note, what each supplier left out, and the questions to send each one so the quotes can be compared fairly.
- Copy every figure exactly from the quote. Where a quote does not say something, write [NOT QUOTED] instead of guessing. Do not choose a supplier for me.
What you get
A comparison sheet with one column per supplier, the differences marked, and the questions to send each one.
Learn how
Get this workflow for your team
Two minutes each: everyone gets a plan of ready workflows like this one, inside your company's rules.
Your manager sees progress and hours. Never what Claude reads or writes.
FirstPrompt's workflow library adapts parts of Anthropic's knowledge-work-plugins (Apache-2.0), rewritten by FirstPrompt. Source and licence