Building a tender package

Choose New on the Tenders screen, pick the costing, and select the items the package covers.

Choosing the items

A package should be one subcontractor’s scope. Not a trade, not a cost center — the work one business would price and do.

That is usually a cost center, but not always:

Cost center	Packages
800 Services	Plumbing, Electrical, HVAC — three packages
300 Concrete	Usually one — the concreter does the lot
1000 Fixing and joinery	Carpentry, and Cabinets — often two businesses

Getting this wrong is the most common cause of bids you cannot compare. If one recipient prices only half the package because the rest is not their trade, you have two bids covering different scopes and no way to line them up.

Adding them

Items go on the tender’s Items tab.

• Add an item — type in the cost code box to find the cost code (or a heading, to see everything under it), then pick the item. Its quantity and product come from the estimate.
• Add a whole cost code — every item under one cost code at once. Items already on the tender are skipped, so adding the same cost code twice does no harm.

If the estimate changes after you build the package, the lines that no longer match are marked. Match on a row brings it back in line; Match the estimate does them all.

Qty and Code on each row decide whether the subcontractor is shown your quantity and the product code.

Attach the item list PDF

Attach the item list PDF to every invitation includes the item schedule in what the subcontractor receives.

Send it. A subcontractor pricing against your item list returns a bid that lines up with your bill line for line, which is what makes comparison and award mechanical rather than manual.

Without it, they price off the drawings and return a lump sum. You get a number, but not one you can bring into the bill against items, and not one you can compare against another lump sum with a different scope behind it.

Send quantities, but expect them to be checked

Giving your quantities makes bids comparable and saves everyone measuring the same thing five times. Most contracts still make the subcontractor responsible for their own quantities — so state clearly whether your figures are for guidance or for pricing, and be consistent about it.

Attachments

Attach Files adds the documents the package needs — drawings, specifications, engineering details, the site plan, soil report.

Attach what is needed to price the work, and no more. A roofer sent the entire 40-sheet architectural set has to find the roof plan; one sent the roof plan, the elevations and the truss layout starts pricing.

Documents can also be set to auto-attach to all new bids from the Documents module, which is the right way to handle the ones that go with every package. See Documents.

The covering email

The Email tab holds the subject and body the subcontractor actually reads first. Insert a field adds placeholders that are filled in for each subcontractor — their name, the project, and their own quote link.

Each subcontractor gets their own copy of this email when you invite them. If you change it afterwards, the tab tells you how many not yet sent still have the older version, and Give them this version brings them up to date.

Include:

• What the package is, and which job
• When you need the price back
• When the work is programmed for
• Any conditions — retention, payment terms, insurance requirements
• Who to ring with questions

The programme date matters more than builders expect. A subcontractor who knows the work is in March prices differently from one who assumes it is next week, and one who does not know at all often does not price at all.

Name and notes

Name is what the tender is called in the tender list. Notes are for your team; subcontractors do not see them. Both are on the tender’s first tab.

Name tenders consistently — Roofing, Plumbing, Electrical — and the tenders list becomes readable across every job at once.

Templates

Email templates are on the Email tab. Save this email as a new template stores the text, and Use this template brings it back on the next tender. Update it with this email, Rename and Delete work on your own templates; SmarteBuild’s are marked and cannot be changed — save a copy of one instead.

Set up a template per trade. Each new job then means selecting the items and sending, rather than rewriting the same email for the twelfth time.