Bid requests

A Bid Request sends your scope of work to one or more vendors and collects each one's prices. You list the items — quantities and units, but no prices — and every vendor fills in their own numbers on their page. Their quotes come back side by side, and the totals feed the budget's Bid Requests column. It's the fifth record type, numbered BID-001, and it goes to vendors only.

Create a bid request

1. From Records, click Create Record.
2. Pick the Project, then choose Bid Request under Bid Requests.
3. The builder opens.

Bid Request is a single-purpose type: it has exactly one template, and you can't add your own. Every bid request uses the same scope-to-price body.

Build the scope to price

1. Give the request a title (for example, "Site concrete package") and an optional Description for anything the vendors should know.
2. Under Scope to Price, click Add items, pick the budget lines you want priced, and click Apply. Save the record to keep the imported scope. Every scope row comes from the budget, so each vendor's numbers stay linked to the right budget line — that's what feeds the Bid Requests column.
3. Quantities and units come from the budget lines. You don't enter prices — that's the vendors' job.

Set a due date

Set a Due Date on the document so vendors know when you need their numbers.

Add vendors and send

1. In the side panel, add recipients with Add a vendor... — bid requests go to vendors only.
2. Flip the Signature? toggle on a vendor to require a binding signature — they'll adopt a signature when submitting, agreeing that their prices are their bid for the scope.
3. Add up to ten vendors in this batch; each one prices it independently and never sees the others' numbers.
4. Click Send. Each vendor gets a link to their own quote page.

Sending creates one record per vendor. A bid request sent to three subs shows up in Records as three documents — BID-001-1, BID-001-2, BID-001-3 — each named for the vendor it went to, each with its own status, and each converting to a vendor agreement on its own. The request you composed stays behind them holding the shared scope and the comparison; you reach it from any of the three.

How a vendor responds

On their page the vendor sees the bid request document itself, with your scope table's Unit Cost and Total columns typeable. Entering a unit cost computes the line total; entering a total (say, a $1,000 lump sum) works too, and the unit cost is derived. A vendor who isn't pricing a particular line can check Not bidding on that row instead of leaving it blank — it shows up on your side as excluded rather than just unpriced. In the Your quote card below the document they can add Inclusions, Exclusions, Alternates, and Comments to qualify their bid. If you required a signature, they sign right on the document before submitting — it binds them to their numbers. When everything's in, they click Submit Quote.

See one vendor's bid

Open any of the per-vendor records from Records — they're listed by vendor name. You see the scope exactly as it was sent to them, their prices, and the inclusions, exclusions and comments they qualified the bid with. From here you can turn their bid into an agreement (below) or Decline it.

Compare the quotes

1. Open any vendor's record and click Compare all bids.
2. Until anyone responds you'll see "Awaiting quotes". As vendors submit, the body becomes a comparison table — one row per scope item, one column per vendor.
3. The lowest price on each row and the lowest grand total are highlighted, so the best number is obvious at a glance. A line a vendor checked Not bidding on shows as excluded in their column rather than a blank or a $0 — it's never mistaken for the lowest price.

You can also see the bids from the budget sheet: the Bid Requests column shows the low–high range of quotes on each line (and how many are still pending). Click it to see every bid — each vendor, their price, and their status — and click Use cost on a quote to set that line's Unit Cost to the vendor's number.

Invite more vendors later

Sending freezes the document — title and scope — but not the invite list, so you're not locked into your first round of vendors. Add a third or fourth sub any time before you award.

1. Open any vendor's record and click Compare all bids.
2. In the side panel, add the new vendor under Invite more vendors.
3. Click Invite More Vendors to send. Only the vendors you just added get a link — everyone already invited is untouched, and the new vendor gets their own record alongside the others.

Award the winner

There are two ways in, and they do the same thing:

• Open the winning vendor's own record and click Vendor Agreement in the side panel — no need to say which vendor, the record is theirs.
• Or, from the comparison table, click Award under the winning vendor's column.

1. Either entry point opens the same confirmation.
2. In the confirmation, choose what happens to the other bids: remove them from consideration (their links stop working and bidding closes — they aren't emailed) or leave bidding open to keep collecting quotes.
3. Confirm with Award — create PO. Foreman creates a draft Purchase Order to that vendor, pre-filled with their quoted prices and linked to the same budget lines — you review and send it from the PO builder. Once the vendor accepts, the amounts land in the budget's Committed column.
4. You can also Decline any single vendor from the list below the comparison, or from that vendor's own record, at any time.

Delete a bid request

1. Open the bid request and click the trash icon in the side-panel action row (tooltip: Delete Bid Request).
2. Confirm the delete. This removes the request along with its recipients, quotes, and any linked plan references, and reverses any budget contributions it made.