RFQ Best Practices
Choosing the right Belleville washer supplier starts with knowing what to put in your RFQ. Whether you’re sourcing Belleville, flange, load, or disk spring washers, the details you include upfront directly determine how fast — and how accurately — we can quote your project.
RFQ Best Practices for Belleville Washers and More
The RFQ best practices below walk through exactly what to provide, in order of importance.
1. Provide Complete Part Details
Share as much as you can: part number, competitor’s part number, bolt size, OD, THK, flat load rating, and torque rating. You don’t need every field, but more detail means a faster, more accurate match.
For example, “1/2-inch Belleville washer” alone still narrows the field to roughly 50 items — and flange, load, and disk spring washers vary just as widely. If your customer didn’t provide these specs, ask before sending the RFQ; it saves a round of follow-up questions.
2. Confirm Your Quantity Needs
Always indicate the quantity needed for each part or size. You’re welcome to request price-break options as well, but we need a starting quantity to build an accurate quote.
Keep in mind that stock levels vary by quantity. We might have 1,000 pieces on hand, for instance, but not 10,000 — so an accurate quantity upfront helps us confirm availability and lead time correctly the first time.
3. Share Your Company Information (New Customers)
If you haven’t worked with American Belleville as your Belleville washer supplier before, please include as much company information as possible on your initial RFQ, such as your address and phone number. We’ll need this to set you up in our system before we can prepare a formal quotation.
To speed up the buying process further, you can also include your resale or tax-exempt certificate and the email address where invoices should be sent. Neither is required at the RFQ stage, but both will be needed before we accept an order, whether you’re paying by credit card or issuing a formal PO.
4. Know Your Payment Options
We accept credit cards, and we don’t charge a fee for using them — a claim not many companies can make anymore. We also gladly accept ACH payments.
If Net 30 terms fit your long-term plans, or you’d simply like to avoid interest on a credit card balance, a list of credit references will get you set up. Either way, every first quote comes with our payment instructions, W-9, and general company information, so you have everything you need to add us as a new supplier or vendor in your system.
5. Request Certifications Early
We can provide certifications — including MTR and Certificate of Conformance — with nearly every part we sell. Requesting them at the time of quote, or at the latest, at the time of order, keeps the cost at no charge. Because after-the-fact certification requests may carry a fee, it pays to flag your certification needs early.
6. Consider a Partner Relationship
Our best customer relationships are collaborative ones. Customers who plan beyond their immediate needs, for example by placing blanket orders on items with ongoing usage, receive our most favorable buying conditions.
Blanket orders stay fully flexible on release schedules, so we can adjust as your requirements change. Once we confirm an order price, that price holds — we will never change it after confirmation. If industry conditions push prices up later, that’s on us to manage, not you, though we’ll work with you to soften the impact on your next blanket order.
7. Flag Tracking Requirements at Time of Order
If you’ll need tracking information for a shipment, please let us know when you place the order. We can automate tracking updates easily when we know in advance; after the fact, it takes considerably more time on both ends. Because we run a lean operation to keep pricing competitive, efficiency at every step — including this one — helps us keep costs down for everyone.
Ready to Request a Quote?
You now have everything you need to put together a fast, accurate RFQ. When you’re ready, submit your quote request and our team will get started right away.
