In this guide 6 sections
Choose by testing on your own awkward orders. Check that catalogue numbers and specification sheets stay attached to items. A quotation must convert to a purchase order against a budget code, and calibration and installation records must be kept. Instruments and reagents need separate shipping rules.
Does the catalogue hold what a lab buyer types?
A lab buyer searches by the manufacturer’s catalogue number, not by the name you gave the product, so test fifty real part numbers in the demo. Watch for the dropped hyphen. Watch for the trailing revision letter.
Try the old number that the maker replaced last year, because buyers keep typing it from an earlier requisition and expect the new item to appear.
Attach the specification sheet, the safety data sheet and the pack size to every item, so the buyer never has to phone you for a missing page. The catalogue must hold a centrifuge rotor and a box of pipette tips without forcing both into one set of fields, since they need different data. They share nothing but the order form.
- Manufacturer part number and your own code side by side
- Superseded numbers that point to the current item
- Datasheet and specification files stored on the item
- Pack size, such as a box of 960 tips or a case of 12 bottles
- Hazard class and storage temperature for reagents
Can a quotation become a purchase order against a budget code?
Universities and hospitals buy against grants and cost centres, so the quotation should carry the budget code, the requisition number and the named approver. The match should run line by line.
Now change something. A buyer cuts one line, swaps a pack size or adds freight, and the system should flag the difference while keeping the original quote intact. Ask to see the version history.
Then follow the order to the supplier. Many instruments are drop-shipped from the maker, so your own purchase order should copy the customer’s reference and let a late invoice be traced to the right grant.
- Quotation validity date and a price lock
- Customer PO number and budget code on every line
- Partial acceptance of a quotation
- Your PO to the maker linked to the customer order
Where do calibration and installation records live?
A balance is not finished when it ships. Someone installs it, checks it and signs a form, and months later a technician calibrates it against a schedule that nobody wrote on the invoice. They belong to the serial number.
Ask the vendor to open one serial number page. It should list the installation date, the engineer, the qualification paperwork and the next calibration due date, so a technician can answer a call without opening three folders. A reminder sent early often becomes a sale.
Check that certificates attach as PDF files. Then find one again in seconds. An audit visit will test exactly that.
How do instruments and reagents ship differently?
Instruments are heavy and fragile, and some need a lift, a crew and a clear path from the receiving dock to the room where they will be installed. Reagents are another matter. They may need cold packs, a dangerous goods declaration or a ship-by day well ahead of expiry, and a delay in transit can spoil them. One shipping rule for both will fail.
Test whether the system picks a delivery method from the item class, or leaves the packer to remember what is chilled, what is heavy and what is restricted. A chilled reagent should refuse a Friday dispatch. An instrument should ask for a slot.
Batch and expiry matter as well. A buyer who gets a kit with two weeks of life left will complain, and the lot number on the delivery note is your only defence. Confirm the picking list shows it too.
- Cold chain and ambient flags per item
- Dangerous goods paperwork for restricted reagents
- Freight booking with dock and lift details for instruments
- Lot and expiry dates on the delivery note
- Cut-off days that block a dispatch before a weekend
Run the demo on your own difficult orders
Do not accept the vendor’s sample data. Bring three real orders that gave you trouble last quarter, one that mixes an instrument with consumables and one that changed twice after the first quotation went out.
Score each test as pass, workaround or fail. A spreadsheet workaround is a fail. Table the scores before price comes up.
A week later, ask each vendor to repeat the three orders with a different person at the keyboard, and note every step that needs a call to support. That is the real test.
Vendor test sheet for a lab dealer
One page lists the demo checks down the left and five columns across: test, what to bring, pass, workaround and fail. The checks are part number search, superseded numbers, quotation to purchase order, budget code match, serial number record, calibration reminder, chilled dispatch and expiry on the delivery note. A scoring box at the foot totals each vendor.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Do we need separate software for instruments and consumables?
Usually not. One system can handle both. It only has to class each item. The test is whether quotation, shipping and record rules change by class on their own, without anyone keeping a side spreadsheet or a sticky note on the monitor.
Should quotations sit in the same system as stock?
Yes, where you can manage it. When the quotation reads live stock and landed cost, the salesperson sees at once what can honestly be promised, and does not need to ask the warehouse. Separate tools mean retyping. Retyping is where wrong quotes begin.
How do I know the calibration records are safe?
Ask where the files sit. Ask who may delete them. Request an export of one serial number’s full history. You do not own what you cannot export.
What if a buyer insists on ordering through its procurement system?
Ask whether the software accepts orders from that system. Large institutions sometimes require punchout or EDI. A tidy catalogue helps either route.