Are these supplier quotations comparable?
Check what each offer actually includes

Keep the request beside the quotations before reviewing the AI draft. What quantity is needed, in which unit, and what must be included? Distinguish an individual item from a pack, and the requested work from optional additions. If the request itself is unclear, ask its owner rather than letting the assistant choose a convenient interpretation. Then identify the quotation versions and attachments actually available. A reference to a missing schedule is a gap, not evidence that its contents are included. Keep the originals accessible so the budget owner can inspect a difference without relying on the summary alone.

The requested scope and the offered scope answer different questions. The first describes what the team wants; the second describes what the supplier has written. Do not silently rewrite one to resemble the other. For this proposed reading aid, ask the assistant to organize each offer against the stated request while retaining its original quantity, unit and conditions. Where a common basis would require an assumption, show the assumption as a question. A comparison can usefully reveal that offers are not yet comparable. It need not manufacture a single adjusted total to look finished.

For each apparent match, open the source and read the full row and column headings, nearby notes and relevant conditions. Does the stated quantity refer to items, packs or a period of service? Does the description cover the requested work or only one part? Keep delivery arrangements and stated exclusions beside the relevant entry rather than losing them in a general summary. TAT-QA studied selected financial-report tables with associated paragraphs. It shows why the surrounding text matters: even the magnitude of a number may appear in a heading or paragraph rather than next to the value. MultiHiertt extends that concern to multiple tables with layered headings. Its examples show how matching a row name and year without the complete heading structure can select the wrong value. Both studies report improvements over the historical baselines they tested, while remaining below their human comparisons. That supports neither dismissing every AI comparison nor trusting a tidy one. These were financial question-answering studies, not tests of supplier quotations.

An explicit exclusion and an unmentioned item are not the same finding. Record the former as an exclusion supported by the quotation; record the latter as not established from the material reviewed. Do not turn silence into either inclusion or exclusion. Likewise, a condition attached to delivery should remain a condition, not become an unconditional promise in the draft. The purchasing coordinator can collect these questions and ask the supplier for clarification through the team's ordinary channels. The responsible purchasing or budget owner decides whether an offered difference meets the need or whether the request needs changing. If the coordinator cannot establish a pack size, inclusion or condition, keep it open for that person. The research does not validate the completeness of exclusions, supplier suitability or a fair-price judgment.

We propose a short comparison note that states the request and, for each offer, preserves its actual scope, source locations, supported matches, differences and unanswered questions. Name the person handling supplier clarification and the owner responsible for unresolved decisions. This is an editorial reading aid, not a procedure tested by either paper or required by its authors. Before sharing the draft, compare its entries with the identified originals. Check whether it has dropped a condition, treated an optional item as included or hidden a quantity mismatch behind a common label. Where wording cannot support a match, say which point remains unclear instead of filling the cell with a guess. The handoff can therefore say which parts appear to cover the same stated requirement and which still need clarification. It should not call the offers fully like-for-like merely because the table is complete. Deciding what to purchase remains separate from organizing the documents.