Tenders
Where trade packages go out for pricing and the responses come back to be compared. It is what turns your own guesses into real prices before you commit to a number. The board opens on who has priced and who has gone quiet: each package (an estimate section) with the subs invited, what each has done with the invitation (not sent, awaiting, opened, quoted, awarded, declined), the quotes due this week with nothing back, and anyone still pricing from an old set of drawings. Estimators run it before the quote; project managers run it after the win.
Tendering happens on both sides of the client decision. Before you quote, it is pricing, so your number rests on real trade prices instead of your own build-up. After you win, it is engaging.
- The Subcontractors module is on (Settings → Team modules).
- The estimate has approved lines in the section you are tendering; the scope is derived from them.
- The subs you invite are businesses in Contacts with the subcontractor role and an email. One can be typed in on the spot and is added to Contacts when you send.
- A written scope of works for the trade makes a better package. The board says "no scope yet" against a trade without one; see Scope of works.
- Press Tender a package and pick the section. A section already out is marked, so you do not send a second round by accident.
- Scope lists the section's lines. Untick a line and it moves under "excluded from this tender", the document renumbers and the money moves; a line that silently vanished would be priced by nobody. Take the dollar figures out of the scope wording if you do not want them seen; PC sums and provisional allowances are left alone.
- Invite & send picks who prices it (filter to compliant subs or those with an address), when prices are due back, and what is attached, including the current plan set.
- Send. The invitation goes by email with the scope and drawings and a link to the tender portal. Replies land here, whether they come through the portal or by email.
- Chase today lists quotes due this week with nothing back. A chase is a text now plus a follow-up email that threads onto the original invitation with the portal link and plan set attached; the page shows the words before you send.
- Press Text + email all, or Chase one sub from the list. A sub's own row has Chase · text + email for the same thing.
- When the plan set changes, the board says how many contractors are not on the current drawings. Their prices answer an older question.
- Press Send everyone the current set. Each gets the new set on the same tender link and thread.
- Open a sub's row: what has happened (the timeline), what they said, and what you can do. Under it is everything Base found out: ratings, a summary, strengths and concerns, their public profile line (in amber when something does not line up), and their internal track record with you, which they never see.
- Submissions are levelled against the estimate's sub scope, so you can see who has left something out rather than only who is cheapest. A cheap price with a section missing is not a cheap price.
- Reply and Request more info open the real email chain the sub is already reading. Send updated tender… goes on the same link and thread, labelled as the next revision, with what changed listed in the email.
- Ask Base to compare writes the cross-tender comparison and a recommended award for the package; Rewrite the comparison does it again once more prices are in.
- The coverage panel shows, per section, what the estimate carried for the subcontracted part, the best or agreed price back, the margin at that price, and the state: not tendered, out for pricing, priced but not carried, carrying trade price.
- Press Carry onto the estimate on a priced section. A reconciling line is added against the sub scope so the quote is built on the real price; your take-off stays exactly as it is. Stop carrying it removes the line and goes back to your own build-up. Material you or the client supply is never in the sub's quote; it is a purchase order of its own.
- Press Award tender… on the sub. Enter the awarded amount (ex GST). Awarding at a figure the tenderer did not give needs a reason, and the override is recorded on the board. Set retention, how they are paid (on invoice, deposit then balance, or in full before supply) and payment terms.
- Read the identity and track-record warnings. A serious one needs a tick to go ahead.
- Confirm. On a won job the award raises an issued purchase order that counts in committed cost from that moment. Issue purchase order… sends the paper, a separate deliberate step; once sent the button reads Open purchase order.
- Decline… the others (they come off the site sign-in list unless they hold another package). Withdraw award… frees the package for somebody else.
- Add another tenderer invites another business to the same round with the same scope, attachments and plan set. Pick one from Contacts or type a new one.
- Cancel invitation… cancels one invitation, or the whole round. Invitations that never arrived are cancelled without a notice.
- Replies to the invitation email are read and the quoted amount is recorded against the send. A quote uploaded on the tender portal lands with its files.
- The tender review agent rates each submission, writes the summary, strengths and concerns, and a cross-tender recommendation per package. It recommends; a person awards.
- A sub's public profile is researched once in Contacts and reused here, so a business is checked once, not once per quote.
- Awarding while the job is still quoting records the price and adds the sub to the team but commits nothing. The commitment appears when the job is marked won.
- Prepare every scope drafts a full scope of works (inclusions, exclusions, interfaces, plan references) for every trade on the estimate before it goes out.
- Read the levelling before the totals.
- An award made from chat, or a tender awarded before the win, raises its order with nobody in a dialog to send it. The board shows the order as unsent until someone presses Issue purchase order….
- A section's own menu on the estimate says Tender invitation; it opens the same two-step invitation as Tender a package here.
- Chasing is a text plus an email, and the text goes now.