--- title: "What should happen when a quote line matches nothing?" canonical_url: "https://cognilium.ai/blogs/when-a-quote-line-matches-nothing" slug: "when-a-quote-line-matches-nothing" section: "blogs" date_published: "2026-09-09" date_modified: "2026-09-09" word_count: 1359 reading_time_minutes: 6 author: "Mudassir Marwat" author_identifier: "0009-0008-1927-2598" person_same_as: - "https://www.linkedin.com/in/mudassir-marwat/" - "https://orcid.org/0009-0008-1927-2598" - "https://github.com/mudassirmarwat" - "https://medium.com/@mudassir-marwat" - "https://www.youtube.com/@mudassir-marwat" - "https://dev.to/mudassirmarwat" - "https://hashnode.com/@mudassirmarwat" - "https://huggingface.co/mudassirmarwat" - "https://bsky.app/profile/mudassir-marwat.bsky.social" - "https://substack.com/@mudassirmarwat" - "https://topmate.io/mudassirmarwat" - "https://fueler.io/mudassirmarwat" - "https://www.instagram.com/mudassirmarwat/" - "https://www.facebook.com/mudassir.marwat" - "https://www.reddit.com/user/mudassirmarwat/" - "https://www.f6s.com/member/mudassir-marwat" - "https://cognilium.ai/founder" entities: [] related: - "https://cognilium.ai/blogs/can-an-agent-price-without-knowing-the-customer" - "https://cognilium.ai/blogs/what-a-quoting-agent-can-read-and-write" - "https://cognilium.ai/blogs/can-an-agent-chase-a-supplier-delivery-date" --- # What should happen when a quote line matches nothing? It should say so, at zero, with the customer's own words attached. Microsoft documents its agent returning a washing machine for washing powder it cannot find. ## Key takeaways - The near-miss is the failure, not the miss. A line that matched nothing costs seconds; a confident wrong match costs the order and surfaces late. - Microsoft documents its own agent returning a related product when the requested item is not in the catalogue at all — the correct answer was we do not stock this. - An unresolved line stays visible, at zero, with the customer's own words attached. A middling score invites acceptance; zero reads as a refusal to guess. - A dropped line is the worst outcome available, because the quote arrives complete-looking and short, and nobody notices until delivery. - A reviewer's manual choice should be remembered for that customer, turning a judgement into a lookup for every future request. It should say so — plainly, at zero, with the customer's own words next to it. That sounds too obvious to write down, and it is the most commonly broken rule in this whole category. **The pressure runs the other way**: a system that returns nothing looks broken, and a system that returns *something* looks like it worked. *For anyone specifying what a quoting system does with a line it cannot resolve. 7 minute read.* ## Why is the near-miss worse than the miss? Three outcomes get lumped together and they are not the same: The third is not a worse version of the second. **It is a different failure class**, and what makes it expensive is exactly what makes it look successful: it produces a complete, priced, plausible row that nobody has any reason to question. A line that matched nothing is cheap. A person looks, resolves it in seconds, the quote goes out. A line that matched the wrong thing at high confidence is expensive, and the cost lands weeks later when the wrong item is on a lorry. ## What does a confident near-miss actually look like? You do not have to take this from us. Business Central's [Sales Order Agent](/blogs/sales-order-agent-or-your-own-quoting-agent) `[GA]` documents one: > *"Searches for related consumables often return the main product instead of the requested accessory or consumable. For example, suppose the customer requests a quote for `WonderWash Waschpulver` in the DE version. The inventory includes `WonderWash Waschmaschine` but not `WonderWash Waschpulver`. However, the agent returns `WonderWash Waschmaschine`."* **Read the middle sentence carefully.** The requested item is *not in the catalogue at all*. The correct answer was *we do not stock this*. What came back was a washing machine instead of washing powder — same brand, entirely different item, entirely different price. Microsoft publishes a second one in the same section: *"When a search term appears as part of a longer word, the system fails to match it"* — where one of two valid candidates is silently omitted and nothing signals that the list is incomplete. **Both are bounded to named local versions in Microsoft's own wording, and both are published by the vendor rather than found by us.** Publishing them is the right call and more than most vendors do. ## What does Microsoft's agent do with an unresolved line? It stops and asks, which is the right instinct — and the mechanics are worth knowing because they shape what you build alongside it. When availability checking is switched on and an item is not available, Microsoft documents that *"reviewers are notified by a **Request Assistance** step in the timeline for the task in the **Task** tab."* The [reviewer](/blogs/why-quote-automation-gets-quantities-wrong) opens an **Item Availability** page, verifies, and decides whether to stop the task or let the agent proceed. **One constraint on that review step matters more than it looks.** The process page states it: *"You can't change the items and quantities at this point."* The reviewer can verify and confirm, or stop — but not correct in place. And there is a harder boundary. **The agent cannot invent the item**: *"The agent doesn't create new items, contacts, or customers. It only works with the entities that are already registered in Business Central."* Microsoft's published test suite lists *"unknown item handling"* as a scenario it evaluates against, so this is deliberate behaviour rather than an oversight. **So the vendor's answer to an unresolved line is: escalate to a human, and do not guess.** That is the same conclusion the rest of this article reaches — the difference is in *what the human is given to decide with*, which is the next section. ## Why say zero rather than a low score? Our position, and it is a design choice rather than a documented feature. **An unresolved line stays on the sheet, with the customer's own words attached, at zero.** Not the nearest plausible product with a hopeful tick. Not forty per cent. **Zero, stated, next to what the customer actually wrote.** Three properties, each deliberate: - **The line does not disappear.** A dropped line is the worst available outcome, because the quote arrives looking complete and short, and neither party notices until delivery. - **Zero is not the same as low.** A number in the middle invites acceptance on a busy afternoon. Zero is a refusal to guess, and it reads as one. - **The customer's words sit underneath.** A reviewer resolving the line needs the raw text, not our interpretation — that is what makes the fix take seconds instead of a search through a mail client. ## How does a reviewer settle an unresolved line? A row that says *needs you* has to give the reviewer something to press, **on the row, always visible.** A control that appears only on hover is a control somebody misses, and a control in a toolbar requires knowing the toolbar exists. **Ask the customer.** The question goes out from the same workspace into the same thread, attached to this line — *"pipe insulation 22 mm, which thickness, and is it the foil-faced?"* The answer comes back against the row it belongs to. Without this, an incomplete line is a dead end. **Find it by hand.** Search the [catalogue](/blogs/how-rfq-line-item-matching-works) and pick the item. **The reviewer's choice beats every heuristic**, and it should be remembered for this customer so the same words resolve without a person next time — which is [chapter 1](/blogs/how-rfq-line-item-matching-works)'s Item Reference table, filled in one row at a time. **Mark it not stocked.** Which brings us to the outcome people are most reluctant to build. ## Is "we don't stock this" an acceptable answer? Yes, and treating it as an error state loses business. The instinct is to hide what the system could not work out — to drop the line rather than admit it. **A quote that comes back covering thirty-nine of forty lines, and says plainly that line eleven is not something you carry, is a useful and professional document.** The customer sources that one item elsewhere and gives you the rest. A quote that silently returns thirty-nine lines invites the customer to notice the gap themselves, and to wonder what else was missed. **Say it on the quote.** It costs one row and it buys the thing the whole exercise depends on: a customer who believes what the document says. Want to know how many of your lines would come back unresolved, and why? Book a 15-minute call — bring a real request and your catalogue, and we will look at both. No deck. ## Sources - [Process sales quotes and orders with Sales Order Agent](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/sales-order-agent-process) - [Sales Order Agent overview — Business Central](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/sales-order-agent) - [FAQ for Sales Order Agent — Business Central](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/faqs-sales-order-taker-agent) - [Item availability in Sales Order Agent (preview)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/sales-order-agent-item-availability) This article is part of our work on [the RFQ quoting engine](/solutions/rfq-quoting-engine). ## Frequently asked questions ### Why is the near-miss worse than the miss? Three outcomes get lumped together and they are not the same: ### What does a confident near-miss actually look like? You do not have to take this from us. Business Central's Sales Order Agent [GA] documents one: ### What does Microsoft's agent do with an unresolved line? It stops and asks, which is the right instinct — and the mechanics are worth knowing because they shape what you build alongside it. ### Why say zero rather than a low score? Our position, and it is a design choice rather than a documented feature. ### How does a reviewer settle an unresolved line? A row that says needs you has to give the reviewer something to press, on the row, always visible. A control that appears only on hover is a control somebody misses, and a control in a toolbar requires knowing the toolbar exists. ### Is "we don't stock this" an acceptable answer? The instinct is to hide what the system could not work out — to drop the line rather than admit it. A quote that comes back covering thirty-nine of forty lines, and says plainly that line eleven is not something you carry, is a useful and professional document. The customer sources that one item elsewhere and gives you the rest. --- Canonical HTML: https://cognilium.ai/blogs/when-a-quote-line-matches-nothing