Sample: Supplier Price Comparison for a Workshop
This worked example shows one supplier price comparison run for a metal workshop. It covers the five quotes that went in, the single comparable table that came back, and the normalisation a human reviewer did so the totals could actually be compared.
The quotes
The workshop had five quotes for the same parts order, and none of them lined up:
- Three PDF quotes, two pasted from emails.
- Different units of measure — some per box, some per unit.
- Some prices excluded tax, some included it.
- Two suppliers folded delivery into the line price.
On the surface one looked cheapest. On a like-for-like basis, it was not.
What came back
The service returned one comparison table, every supplier on the same footing:
- Price normalised to the same unit and the same tax basis.
- Delivery separated out where it had been bundled into the line.
- Total landed cost per supplier, plus aligned lead times.
- A notes column recording every conversion, so the workshop can audit the maths rather than trust it blindly.
The table presents figures. It does not push a supplier — the decision stays with the workshop.
What the reviewer normalised
Comparisons are only fair once the units match, so the review pass focused there:
- Two quotes were converted from per-box to per-unit pricing.
- Bundled delivery was pulled out of one line price and shown separately.
- A tax-inclusive quote was aligned to the same basis as the rest.
After that, the genuinely cheapest two were not the ones that looked cheapest at first glance — which is the whole point of the exercise.
The deliverable
The workshop got one table they could trust: real landed costs, delivery and tax handled consistently, and a clear note of every adjustment. No spreadsheet wrestling, no comparing a per-box price against a per-unit one by accident.
Quote sets vary in number and messiness; the normalisation rules are confirmed at intake.