A bid request is a builder asking you to price work they have already broken down. The lines come from their estimate, so what you send back sits directly against the number they assumed. That is why the form asks for a price per line rather than one figure at the bottom.
Finding the ones waiting on you
Bids in the sidebar has two lists. Requests is what you have been invited to; Responses is what you have started or sent. Each has its own filter, and narrowing one leaves the other alone.
In the Requests list, My Status tracks your side of the exchange:
- Invited: sent to you, and you have not opened it yet.
- Viewed: you have opened it. The builder can see that too, so opening a request and then going quiet is visible to them.
- Responded: you have submitted.
- Awarded: you won it.
Request Status beside it is the builder's state for the request as a whole: Published, Closed, or Awarded.
Starting
Open the request and read it before pricing anything. Request Details carries the due date, when the work is needed by, the payment terms the builder is asking for, and whether bonding or insurance is required. Below that are the scope of work, any documents the builder attached, and the items to quote.
Respond to Bid Request starts your response. The same button becomes Continue Response while your response is a draft, and View My Response once you have submitted.
The response summary
Four things at the top govern the whole bid. Three carry an asterisk, which means the builder expects an answer:
- Quote Valid Until: how long your price stands. If you leave it blank you have quoted an open-ended price, which is rarely what you meant.
- Offered Payment Terms: the terms you are offering, which do not have to match what was requested. The requested terms are on the request page, so you can see what you are departing from.
- Tax Rate (%): entered as a percentage. This is the one field the form insists on. The rate the builder asked for is printed under the field; if you charge a different one, put yours in, and the builder sees the mismatch up front.
- Vendor Reference and Lead Time (Days) are optional. The reference is your own quote number, and the fastest way for both of you to tie this bid back to your system later.
Total Amount beside them is not a field you can type in. Subtotal, tax and total are all calculated from the lines, which is why there is nowhere to enter a bottom line.
Pricing the lines
Each line under Line Item Pricing carries the builder's description, the quantity and the unit of measure, and any scope note they wrote for your benefit.
Unit Price and Total are two ways into the same number. Type a unit price and the total follows from the quantity; type a total and the unit price is worked back. Use whichever way you actually quote.
Include is the checkbox that matters. Clearing it collapses the line and takes it out of your total, which is how you bid on part of a package without inventing a zero. The builder sees the line as Not included, a different answer than a price of nothing.
Taxable is per line, so a mixed bid of materials and labor prices correctly without splitting the bid.
+ Add alternate product opens two fields for an alternate product and its manufacturer. Use it when you are pricing something other than what was specified. It puts the substitution on the line itself instead of in a covering note that gets skimmed. Line item note below it is for a clarification that belongs to one line only.
Offering more than one package
Under the lines, Want to submit multiple bid packages? opens the option to send more than one complete bid: a standard and an upgraded specification, say, or with and without a scope you would rather quote separately.
Each package is a complete bid on its own. Start from the one you are viewing, click Duplicate package, then adjust and rename the copy. Names are required and have to differ from each other.
One package is the Primary, and that is the one the builder's comparison uses by default. Make Primary moves the badge. Whichever you mark, the builder can still see and award any of them.
Notes, exclusions, inclusions and warranty
Four free-text panels sit below the pricing. Exclusions is the one to spend time on: spelling out what you are not pricing heads off the argument you would otherwise be having mid-job.
Check Save warranty terms, inclusions, and exclusions as my defaults for future bids at the foot once, and your next bid starts from your standard wording.
Files
Files takes proposals, specifications, drawings or anything else supporting the bid, and you can add to it at any time, before submitting or after.
Submitting
Save Draft keeps your work without sending anything. Nothing reaches the builder until Submit Bid, and the button only appears once there is something to submit.
Submitting notifies the builder.
Changing your mind after submitting
Two buttons appear on a submitted bid, and they do different things.
Revise Bid puts your bid back to Draft with a new revision number so you can edit it. The builder does not see the revision until you submit again, so do not leave it sitting in Draft.
Withdraw Bid takes your bid off the table and notifies the builder. Withdrawing is not final: a withdrawn bid is editable, and you can submit it again.
Both buttons disappear once the request has been awarded.
When the builder changes the request
The builder does not have to start a new request when scope moves; they can amend the one you already priced.
While they are preparing the change you will see Bid Request Amendment in Progress and your response is read-only. Nothing is expected of you yet.
When they republish, your bid is flagged Bid Request Amended - Review Required, and a summary tells you what actually changed so you are not left comparing two documents. You then choose:
- Reaffirm This Bid: your existing price still stands against the new scope.
- Submit New Bid: opens a revision so you can reprice.
Until you do one or the other your bid is marked as needing review, and the builder will not compare it against bids priced on the current scope. Reaffirming takes a click, so there is no reason to leave it.
If the builder enters your bid for you
Prices arrive by phone and by email as well as through the portal, and a builder can enter or correct a response on your behalf. When they do, the response says so, showing Entered by or Updated by with their name, and a package they created is labeled a Builder package. Their reason and every before-and- after value is in History, which you can open from the response.
If something there is not what you quoted, that record is what to point at.
Winning and losing
An award is announced on the request. Winning shows the awarded package and the awarded amount, so there is no ambiguity about which of your packages was taken. Not winning shows Bid Not Selected; the builder is told to notify everyone, not only the winner.
Winning can also put you on the project team, which is how the rest of the portal (purchase orders, bills, schedule, messages) starts carrying this job. That depends on your already having a login here: the recipients added are the ones holding a portal account that has been invited and is still active. If you priced this through a link rather than by signing in, winning does not create an account for you and nothing new appears. Ask the builder for an invitation.
See the vendor portal for the wider picture, and submitting a bill for invoicing the builder once you are on the job.