Still quoting from inboxes? There’s a better way. (It's not who you think)

Executive Insight:

For most aviation businesses, quoting is seen as a tactical function. A step. A reply. A necessary obligation.

But at the executive level, quoting isn’t just a response — it’s a strategic lever.

It’s the first moment of risk.
The earliest sign of margin discipline.
The hidden cost center that, if unmanaged, leaks revenue at scale.

And yet, most ERP or quoting tools treat it as a bolt-on — disconnected from inventory, certs, freight, POs, or vendor reality.

That’s why ERP.Aero re-engineered quoting from the inside out — not as a tool, but as the core intelligence engine of a connected aviation ERP.

This is not a feature upgrade.
This is a structural shift.

“We didn’t just make quoting faster. We made it accountable.”
— ERP.Aero Leadership

TL;DR

If your quoting process relies on parsing emails and spreadsheets, you’re not quoting. You’re leaking value.

✅ iRFQ is ERP.Aero’s native quoting system.
✅ Built into 64 connected modules, not bolted on.
✅ Live inventory, vendor data, margin, freight, compliance — all embedded.
✅ Drives speed and strategic control.
✅ Live in weeks — not quarters.

Data behind my article posted on LinkedIn -

Section Preview for What's Next:

• Section 1: The Executive View of Quoting: Risk, Not Routine

• Section 2: Why “Speed Alone” is a Dangerous KPI

• Section 3: iRFQ: The Quoting Intelligence Engine, Not a Tool

• Section 4: Control at Scale: From Quote to PO to Profit

• Section 5: Real Results: What Happens When You Replace the Stack

• Section 6: Built to Close. Built to Last. Built for C-Level Confidence

Section 1: The Executive View of Quoting — Risk, Not Routine

If you're in the C-suite, you already know: quoting isn’t a line item.
It’s not just a daily activity performed by sales or support staff.

It’s a systemic touchpoint. And when mismanaged, it becomes an exponential risk vector across operations, finance, customer experience, and compliance.

Quoting is where:

• Margin discipline is either enforced or forgotten
  

• Inventory truth is either validated or assumed
  

• Cert and compliance risk is either embedded or ignored
  

• Operational strain is either scaled or hidden
  

• Revenue predictability is either structured or eroded
  

Yet too many systems treat quoting as a task, not a critical control point.

Disconnected quoting — whether from email parsing tools, spreadsheets, or bolt-on quote engines — does one thing very well:
It speeds up mistakes.

Executive Risks of Disconnected Quoting:

• Revenue leakage: Quotes go out with missed margins, unverified costs, or forgotten freight charges
  

• Operational friction: POs have to be rebuilt manually due to disconnected quote data
  

• Compliance exposure: Missing trace, certs, or approvals open the door to liability
  

• Reputational damage: Late shipments, wrong parts, or audit failures from inaccurate quotes erode trust fast
  

• Forecast instability: You can’t rely on quoting data to predict revenue, margin, or workload accurately
  

Quoting might live in sales — but its consequences live everywhere.

That’s why ERP.Aero built iRFQ not as a speed tool, but as a command system — a quoting engine that integrates with inventory, compliance, vendors, CRM, freight, and POs by design.

Not to reduce clicks.
To reduce uncertainty.

Section 2: Why “Speed Alone” is a Dangerous KPI

For too long, quoting tools have chased a single metric: response time.
The idea being — the faster you quote, the more likely you are to win.

But speed, by itself, is deceptive.
Speed can create false confidence.
Speed without infrastructure doesn’t scale — it fractures.

The Problem with Speed-First Quoting:

• Fast quotes with no inventory check lead to backorders

• Fast quotes with no cert logic get rejected by compliance

• Fast quotes with no margin enforcement collapse profitability

• Fast quotes with no PO continuation add strain on ops

• Fast quotes with no vendor confirmation destroy trust

• Fast quotes with no freight calculation stall fulfillment

It’s not quoting — it’s gambling.
And when quoting exists in a silo, you’re scaling risk, not revenue.

The Other Guys? They’re Tools — Not Systems

Most quoting apps promise speed.
What they don’t offer:

• Any real-time connection to internal inventory
  

• Any embedded vendor pricing logic
  

• Any freight, PO, or compliance continuity
  

• Any integration with CRM terms or margin rules
  

• Any forward flow into ops or finance
  

They’re overlays. Not foundations.

They parse emails. They scrape PDFs. They sit outside the system and offer cosmetic efficiency — while your margins, timelines, and audit trails hang in the balance.

ERP.Aero doesn’t optimize for quote speed alone.
It optimizes for controlled, scalable execution — where every quote is compliant, profitable, and ready to flow straight into ops.

Section 3: iRFQ — The Quoting Intelligence Engine, Not a Tool

What if quoting didn’t just reply?

What if it understood inventory, enforced margin, tracked certs, accounted for freight, and handed off to PO creation — all from a single screen?

That’s the reality with iRFQ by ERP.Aero.

Built directly into the ERP.Aero platform — not bolted on — iRFQ is the quoting engine that replaces guesswork with governance.
It’s not an app that lives in your inbox. It’s a native intelligence layer that powers every quote with data you already own — structured, live, and connected.

What iRFQ Does — Natively:

• Ingests RFQs from ILS, PartsBase, Locatory, StockMarket.aero, webforms, and email — and structures them intelligently
  
  

• Checks inventory in real time, across actual, consignment, and catalog stock
  

• Pulls vendor quote data directly, not through inbox hunting
  

• Applies margin rules based on customer class, part type, and cert conditions
  

• Includes cert and trace logic automatically, based on customer and part profiles
  

• Embeds freight preferences and calculates accurate terms and costs
  

• Outputs quotes that are ready for PO, ready for compliance, ready for profit
  

This is quoting as an operational asset — not a loose transaction.

“Our team doesn’t quote from memory anymore.
We quote from data — and we quote to win.”
— Aviation Ops Director (iRFQ Customer)

And because it’s all native, there’s no sync delay, no re-entry, and no system drift.
Every quote becomes a trackable thread from request → approval → fulfillment → margin analysis.

Section 4: Control at Scale — From Quote to PO to Profit

In complex aviation operations, growth doesn’t just introduce opportunity — it amplifies exposure.

The more quotes you send, the more room there is for error.
The more RFQs you receive, the more critical it becomes to know which ones convert, which ones leak margin, and which ones create operational drag.

This is where most systems break.
Because most quoting tools stop at “sent.”
They don’t tell you:

• What inventory was actually available

• What vendor pricing changed before the quote closed

• What certs were missing or expired

• Whether follow-up happened

• Whether the PO was built cleanly

• Whether the margin held from quote to invoice

And that’s exactly why iRFQ by ERP.Aero doesn’t stop at quoting.
It continues.

🔄 iRFQ Powers the Entire Lifecycle:

• Quotes become click-to-convert POs, with freight, terms, and part alternates already embedded
  

• Every quote is PO, freight, and cert-ready
  
  

• Follow-up logic ensures quotes don’t disappear into inboxes
  

• Audit trails track response times, quote-to-close rates, and margin retention
  
  

• Outcomes feed analytics dashboards for executive visibility
  

You’re not just quoting faster.
You’re quoting with precision at scale — and enforcing operational discipline along the way.

That’s what modern ERP quoting should do:
Turn friction into flow.
Turn chaos into control.
Turn quoting into profit.

Section 5: Real Results — What Happens When You Replace the Stack

Executives don’t buy features.
They buy outcomes.

That’s why the most compelling case for iRFQ isn’t just what it does — it’s what happens when companies like Banner Aircraft deploy it.

This isn’t a hypothetical. This is post-implementation data.
And the numbers don’t lie.

Before iRFQ:

• Quotes took hours

• Sales team hunted vendor quotes manually

• Inventory accuracy hovered at 43%

• Margin misfires were common due to spreadsheet-based quoting

• POs were built manually, often a day or two after quote approval

• Compliance audits required last-minute document collection and rework

• Conversion rates lingered at 15%

After iRFQ:

• Quote time dropped to minutes

• Vendor pricing was live and synced into the quoting engine

• Inventory accuracy rose to 99% — real-time checks, zero retyping

• Margin logic was enforced automatically by part type and condition

• POs issued within 12 hours, fully populated

• Compliance logic embedded at the quote level — no surprises downstream

• Conversion rate jumped to 55%

• Revenue doubled from $10.5M to $21.2M

“We didn’t just quote faster — we stopped bleeding margin.
iRFQ let us scale quoting without scaling mistakes.”
— GM, Banner Aircraft International

This is what replacing a disconnected stack with one connected quoting engine can deliver:

• Speed, yes

• But also structure

• Compliance

• Visibility

• And real ROI

This is not just quoting.
This is quoting transformed into a controlled revenue system.

Section 6: Built to Close. Built to Last. Built for C-Level Confidence

C-level decisions aren’t made on convenience.
They’re made on impact, alignment, and strategic leverage.

And if quoting in your business still lives in email threads, Excel sheets, and bolt-on apps — then your quoting is a bottleneck pretending to be a process.

ERP.Aero’s iRFQ was built to change that — for good.

Why C-Level Leaders Choose iRFQ:

• It replaces 10–15 quoting and compliance steps with a single unified interface
  

• It embeds control — margin, freight, inventory, vendor logic — into every quote
  

• It scales intelligently, without hiring or duct tape
  

• It lives inside ERP.Aero, a system designed for real-time aviation operations
  

• It’s deployable in weeks, not quarters — with full audit-readiness and zero bolt-ons
  

This isn’t a quoting tool for sales.
This is an enterprise infrastructure decision — designed for:

• Operational efficiency

• Financial control

• Audit stability

• Customer confidence

• Scalable growth

“We had tools that quoted fast. What we needed was a quoting system that could scale without compromise.”
MRO Floor Demo

When you quote from iRFQ, you’re not reacting.
You’re executing.

You’re quoting from truth, not templates.
From structure, not improvisation.
From a system that was engineered — not bolted together.

Ready to See iRFQ in Action?

Book a 20-minute executive walkthrough.
We’ll show you how iRFQ runs live inside ERP.Aero — and how your team can be quoting with compliance, confidence, and conversion in weeks.

You’ve already built the team.
You’ve already earned the RFQs.
Now give them the system that wins them — every time.

Ralph Merhi
CEO | ERP.Aero
[email protected]
305-209-3789