Forwarding Emails to RFQs

The Scenario

A customer emails you asking for a quote. Instead of manually copying their requirements into a new RFQ, you forward their email to Buyer24. The system reads the email, extracts the requirements, and creates a draft RFQ — with your end customer's identity scrubbed — ready for you to review and send to suppliers.

How It Works

1. Your customer sends you an email with their requirements
2. You forward it to forward@rfq.buyer24.ai from your connected email account
3. Buyer24 acknowledges receipt immediately
4. The system extracts the original email content and any attached documents
5. Customer-identifying information is removed according to your organization's redaction rules — from the email text and from attachments
6. A draft RFQ is created in your Buyer24 account
7. You receive a second email with a link to review the draft
8. Open the draft, verify the content, and activate when ready

The whole process takes a few minutes.

See it in action: the distributor walkthrough plays this exact flow — forwarded customer email in, scrubbed RFQ out — with a realistic example.

Requirements

• You must have a Gmail or Outlook account connected to Buyer24. The forwarding feature identifies you by the email address you forward from — it must match your Buyer24 account.
• If you haven't connected your email yet, see Connecting Your Email.

Forwarding the Email

In your email client (Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail), forward the customer's email to:

forward@rfq.buyer24.ai

That's it. You don't need to write anything in the body of the forward. You can also write a fresh email instead of forwarding — "need quotes on these parts for our customer, specs attached" works just as well; the redaction rules apply either way.

What gets extracted:

• The original email body (customer's requirements, specifications, quantities)
• Any PDF, Word, or Excel attachments (spec sheets, bills of materials, drawings)

Controlling Redaction with Your Own Rules

What gets scrubbed isn't hard-coded — it follows the rules you write. Add a `## Redaction` section to your organization's compliance document and describe, in plain English, what must never reach suppliers and what should be preserved. For example:

## Redaction

Redact:
- Names, contacts, phones, emails, and street addresses of any
  third-party organization mentioned in the RFQ body or attachments.

Do not redact:
- Our own organization's name and contact details.
- Mentions of our long-term distribution partners: Brighton-Best.

Your rules are applied to everything supplier-facing:

• Email text — every matching detail in the subject and body is replaced with [redacted] before the draft is shown to you.
• PDF attachments — the actual file bytes are scrubbed in place, including scanned pages. A drawing's title block is cleaned while the geometry, dimensions, and tolerances suppliers need are untouched.
• Attachment handling — your rules can also say which attachments to drop entirely (e.g., a customer cover letter with no parts data) versus scrub and forward.

After scrubbing, Buyer24 verifies the targeted text is actually gone from each file. If scrubbing a file couldn't be verified — for example, an unusual drawing format — the RFQ is blocked from approval and you'll see exactly which file and which details failed, so nothing leaks by accident. You can tighten your rules, remove the attachment, or fix it manually.

Tip: Your rules are the biggest quality lever. Be explicit about what to remove and what to keep — exceptions like your own company name or named partners belong in the "do not redact" list.

Preserving the Original Wording

By default, Buyer24 restructures forwarded content into a clean RFQ format with an items table. If you'd rather keep the customer's email close to verbatim — useful when their messages contain custom tables or technical layouts that shouldn't be reformatted — add a `## RFQ Drafting Style` section to your organization's procurement guidelines describing how drafts should be written (e.g., "keep the customer's wording near-verbatim; do not rephrase, renumber, or convert tables; remove all end-customer identifying details"). Buyer24 follows your style for every draft.

The Draft RFQ

When the draft is ready, you receive an email with a link. Open it in Buyer24 to see:

• Subject — generated from the customer's email, with identifying details removed
• Description — the customer's requirements, with your redaction rules applied
• Attachments — each in its final supplier-ready form: passed through, scrubbed, or dropped, with a visible summary of what was removed and why

Review the draft carefully before activating:

• Check that the requirements were extracted correctly
• Add or adjust specifications if anything is missing
• Set your budget, deadline, and delivery location
• Confirm the redaction summary matches your expectations — what you approve is exactly what suppliers receive

Once you're happy, click Activate and start adding suppliers.

Why Redaction Matters

When you send an RFQ to suppliers, you typically don't want them knowing who your end customer is. The redaction step protects your business relationship — suppliers see a clean, professional RFQ about the product requirements, not a forwarded email with your customer's letterhead. Because attachments are scrubbed at the file level and verified, even copy-pasting text out of a forwarded drawing won't reveal your customer.

Troubleshooting

No draft was created:

• Check that the email you forwarded from is connected to your Buyer24 account (Profile → Email Integration)
• Check your spam folder — Buyer24's acknowledgment email may have been filtered

Draft is missing information:

• Attachments with complex layouts (scanned PDFs, image-only files) may extract less accurately. Manually add the missing details in the draft editor.

Customer information wasn't fully redacted:

• Check your organization's ## Redaction rules — if a detail isn't covered by the rules, it isn't scrubbed. Update the rules (or edit the draft directly) before activating.

The RFQ is blocked from approval with a redaction failure:

• A file couldn't be verifiably scrubbed. Open the draft to see which file and which details failed, then either remove that attachment, adjust your rules, or replace the file with a clean version.