What happens to a request that arrives out of catalog?
The system flags the line item as out of catalog or without a price, and the request stops in the inbox until a person resolves it. The numbered quote is generated only when every line item is ready. That is how the portal of an industrial equipment distributor works today, in production with the client team.
Why it happens often
The distributor's portal has a 368-item enriched catalog with spec sheets and supplier price lists with 8,000+ integrated products. Even so, customers ask in their own words: an incomplete description, another supplier's part number, or a product that is simply not in the catalog.
Before the system, that request was the most expensive of all: hunting prices across scattered lists and chasing the spec product by product, by hand. Today it is still the one that needs the most human attention, but it no longer gets lost or guessed.
What the system does
The customer's email, chat message, or PDF enters the quoting inbox with customer, subject, owner, and status: no prices, under review, or ready to quote. AI cleans the data and fills in the line items, suggests the catalog code, and flags whatever is out of catalog for a person to review.
What matters is what it does not do: it does not fill the line with a similar product or attach an approximate price. Whatever it does not recognize stays flagged, and the request stays in the inbox with that warning in plain sight.
- Enters the inboxCustomer, subject, owner, and status
- The systemAI fills in the line itemsSuggests a code and flags what is out of catalog
- On holdThe request stopsStays in the inbox with the warning in plain sight
- A person approvesA person resolves itCode, supplier, costing, or out of this quote
- Numbered quoteOnly when every line item is ready
What the person does
Sales reviews each line item: description, code, quantity, and delivery, shipping, and installation terms. For the flagged line, the person decides whether it matches an existing code, whether to look it up in the supplier price lists, whether to cost it with the costing engine, or whether to leave it out of this quote and explain that to the customer.
The price benchmark against the market feeds that pricing decision but does not replace it. The person decides with the information at hand, in the same portal.
For the flagged line
- Match it to an existing code
- Look it up in the supplier price lists
- Cost it with the costing engine
- Leave it out and explain that to the customer
What does not happen
- No similar product gets filled in
- No approximate price gets attached
- No quote goes out with pending line items
When the quote goes out
The numbered quote is generated only when every line item is ready. If one is still flagged as out of catalog or without a price, the request stops in the inbox until someone resolves it. No quote leaves without that review.
When everything is in catalog, a real request became a review-ready quote in 42 seconds. When something is out, the person sets the pace, and we do not publish a figure for that path because it depends on each request.
Why stopping is the better outcome
A quote with an invented line item costs more than a wait: a wrong price, a product that does not exist, or a delivery term nobody reviewed. AI can make mistakes, which is why the flow was designed so that anything unclear goes back to a person.
Once sent, the quote is tracked by stage in the sales pipeline, and management sees how many opportunities sit in each stage and which ones need action. The out-of-catalog line stops being a lost email and becomes a pending item with an owner.