Updating a Draft by Reply
Reply or forward to your RFQ-ready email to add items, documents, details, or suppliers to a draft — straight from your inbox.
What This Is
When you start an RFQ by email, Buyer24 sends you a "your RFQ is ready" email. That email isn't just a notification — it's a live channel back into your draft. To change or extend the draft, you don't need to open the app:
- Reply to the email with more details, corrections, or instructions.
- Forward another email into the same thread — for example, a follow-up your customer just sent you, attachments and all. The ready email prints the exact address to use, tappable on mobile.
Buyer24 reads what you sent, updates the draft, and emails you a confirmation. This is built for people working from a phone: a distributor who gets a follow-up from their end customer can fold it into the in-flight RFQ in two taps.
Typical moments this saves you:
- You remembered an extra item after sending the original request
- Your customer just sent a follow-up with more parts or an updated spec sheet
- The deadline or ship-to address changed
- You reviewed the draft on your phone and want a tweak before it goes out
What You Can Do by Reply
| You write or forward | What happens |
|---|---|
| More items or specs ("can you also add…") | The new items are added to the draft — existing items are never replaced or dropped |
| Attachments (PDF, Excel, drawings) | Documents are parsed and their contents folded into the draft |
| A detail change ("move the deadline to June 5", "ship to our Dallas warehouse") | The specific field is updated, everything else untouched |
| Supplier instructions ("also ask Acme Industrial for a quote") | Suppliers are matched and attached to the draft |
| A go-ahead ("looks good, send it") | Your verified reply authorizes the send |
| A plain question | You get an answer — the draft isn't touched |
Additions are append-only. Buyer24 never interprets "add this" as "replace everything with this." Items and requirements from earlier emails survive every update — even if the new content is on a completely different topic than the original request, everything you sent goes into the draft.
Step by Step
- Open the "your RFQ is ready" email (or any later confirmation in the same thread).
- Hit Reply and write your update in plain English — or Forward another email to the address printed in the body.
- Buyer24 verifies the message really came from you, then updates the draft accordingly.
- You get a confirmation email describing what changed, with a link to the updated draft. The confirmation is itself reply-able, so you can keep refining in the same thread.
If your organization has written redaction rules, any new attachments go through the same compliance scrubbing as the original ones before they can reach suppliers — see Forwarding Emails to RFQs.
What to Expect
- Updates apply to drafts only. If the RFQ has already been sent to suppliers, your reply gets a polite response pointing you to edit it in the app instead — silently changing an RFQ that suppliers are already quoting against would put everyone on different versions.
- Only your address works. Replies are cryptographically tied to the email address the ready email was sent to. If someone else gets hold of the thread and tries to inject changes, their message is ignored.
- Duplicates are handled. If your mail client sends the same message twice, the draft is only updated once.
- No confirmation for no-ops. A reply that doesn't change anything (a question, an "ok, received") may not generate an update email — there was nothing to confirm.
Tips & FAQ
Does this work for RFQs I created in the app?
No — reply-based updates currently work for RFQs that started by email. Drafts you create in the app are edited in the app, where you have the full editor anyway.
Can I send several updates?
Yes. Each reply or forward is processed in turn, and each addition stacks on top of the previous state of the draft.
I forwarded my customer's follow-up — will their details leak to suppliers?
If your organization has a redaction policy, it applies to the new content and attachments just like the original email. Review the draft before approving the send.
How fast does the update land?
Updates are processed by your AI assistant shortly after the email arrives — typically within minutes. The confirmation email tells you when it's done.
Where do I see the history?
Open the draft in the app — all folded-in content and attachments are visible there before anything goes to suppliers.
Can I just say "send it" by email?
Yes. Because your reply is verified as coming from you, a clear go-ahead in the thread authorizes dispatching the RFQ to the matched suppliers — no separate approval click required.
What if I'd rather use the app?
Any time. The ready email's sign-in link takes you straight to the draft, where the full editor is available — reply-based updates are a convenience, not a requirement.