How Quick Quote Speeds Up Procurement for Local Government

Just 58% of agencies use technology platforms for informal sourcing and requests for quotes, according to the Center for the Advancement of Research and Excellence. Civic Marketplace’s Quick Quote feature is making the initial stages of the procurement process easy and efficient, giving purchasing teams faster access to the information they need from suppliers to make better-informed procurement decisions.

What is Quick Quote?

For purchases that fall within an agency’s authorized procurement procedures and applicable purchasing requirements, Quick Quote on Civic Marketplace lets buyers gather quotes from suppliers for goods, equipment, or services, without running a formal solicitation.

Buyers post a sourcing need, ping pre-vetted suppliers, collect responses inside the platform, and compare quotes side-by-side with an AI-powered smart summary. The entire process becomes an auditable record, which can be exported as a csv/xls smart summary.

It isn’t a formal Request For Proposal or Request For Quote – nor does it replace formal solicitation when statute requires one. Think of it as a faster, structured workflow for everything that should never need a full solicitation, and a quicker way to confirm when a purchase actually does require one. One of the strongest benefits is the ability to reduce administrative burden while maintaining documentation and visibility throughout the procurement process.

RFP cycle time

It takes public sector procurement teams about 57 days on average to take a Request For Proposal (RFP) from posting to award, with about 80 staff hours per project (and 130+ for more complex projects). That benchmark from the NCPP also showed that the initial stages and publication of an RFP takes up half of all the time spent on the project.

As Brian Funderburk, Civic Marketplace’s VP – Agencies, recently shared, one procurement manager told him it takes their team around three months to move from an initial idea to an active procurement process.

That time commitment means pre-solicitation work is particularly important; scoping the requirements, searching for credible suppliers, requesting informal quotes, reconciling responses in inconsistent formats, and deciding whether the purchase actually warrants a formal solicitation. This is often still done in emails and spreadsheets, often by a procurement team of one to three people stretched across multiple departments.

Quick Quote is a tool built into the Civic Marketplace platform to help folks speed up that work – and you may find that you can secure a supplier without the need for a formal solicitation process at all. It can help agencies gather market intelligence and supplier information more efficiently before determining the appropriate procurement path.

What advantages does using Quick Quote give you?

For the right use cases, Civic Marketplace's Quick Quote enables five things for procurement:

1. Faster supplier outreach

Ensuring competition between suppliers is usually a problem of visibility and reach, rather than quality. According to SmartCitiesDive, 62% of agencies receive an average of just 2-5 bids on their solicitations. Quick Quote enables outreach to over 490 pre-vetted suppliers, segmented by NIGP code, automatically, so the project reaches the right suppliers the first time. Agencies retain full control over supplier participation, competition requirements, and vendor outreach decisions.

2. Pricing visibility earlier on

Budgets are usually set before there has been any engagement with the market. Our Quick Quote feature helps purchasing teams see indicative pricing earlier in the planning phase – in a format that can be easily cross referenced with other suppliers.These quotes are non-binding, and can also help feed into an agency’s budgetary and procurement planning processes.

3. More structured quote collection

Many agencies maintain documented quote-based purchasing procedures for purchases below formal solicitation thresholds. Quick Quote standardizes this bid intake, formats it, and captures the audit trail automatically.

4. Less manual back-and-forth

Clarifications, Q&As, and attachments live inside the request record. Suppliers respond in the same place each time and the auditable summary is a single export. The dozens of hours of administrative work that comes from manual workflows is condensed into a fraction of the time.

5. Clearer visibility into next-step decisions

Our AI-powered smart comparison view and exportable summary is also great for internal stakeholder conversations. The information gathered can support procurement planning, stakeholder discussions, sourcing strategy decisions, and procurement governance activities. It can be used to decide whether to award straight off the quote, route the purchase through an existing cooperative contract, or escalate to a formal RFP if necessary.

When it works best

Quick Quote helps agencies achieve the procurement trifecta of time, cost, and quality by simplifying supplier outreach and organizing responses in one place. Agencies can move faster, gain better visibility into pricing, evaluate supplier options with confidence, and maintain a clear, documented record that strengthens transparency, accountability, and decision-making.

Quick Quote is ideal for purchases that don't require a formal solicitation and are conducted in accordance with your agency's purchasing policies and applicable procurement requirements. Whether you're gathering budgetary or directional pricing, comparing supplier options, validating a purchasing approach, or refreshing pricing for an existing category, Quick Quote keeps the process simple, organized, and efficient.

Quick Quote is not a substitute for a formal solicitation when one is required. For teams that want help triaging which path applies, Civic Marketplace's procurement advisers – former public-sector procurement leaders – can walk you through the specifics.

For purchases that run through an awarded cooperative contract, use Coop Quotes; for everything else, use Quick Quote.