FAQs for Procurement & Tendering

Question 1

What should an invitation to tender pack contain?

Accepted Answer

Enough for every tenderer to price the same job on the same basis: a clear scope, a pricing schedule structured to be levelled, stated preliminaries and attendances, the programme, and the contract terms. A good ITT pack answers, in advance, every question a tenderer would otherwise resolve with a different assumption, because each assumption is a reason the returns come back non-comparable. It needs a scope description precise enough that four tenderers price the same works, with the interfaces and the things that fall between trades named. It needs a pricing schedule structured into the lines you intend to level against, so returns break down comparably rather than as single lump sums. It needs the preliminaries and attendances stated explicitly, who provides access, welfare, plant, scaffold, power and waste, since unstated attendances are the commonest cause of prices that cannot be compared. It needs the tender programme and key dates. And it needs the contract terms the package will be placed under, the payment mechanism, programme obligations and damages regime, because a price given without sight of the terms is one the tenderer will revise the day they read them. An hour closing gaps in the enquiry saves a week reconciling incomparable returns, and designs out the post-tender surprise where the winner reads the terms and asks for more.

Question 2

How should I structure a pricing schedule for tenders?

Accepted Answer

Break the works into the lines you will want to level against, keep preliminaries and attendances as their own lines, and require rates as well as totals so an error or an omission shows. The schedule's job is to make the returns comparable and a thin price visible, so structure it around the levelling you will do later rather than a single bottom line. Break the works into sections that match how you will assess and pay, ideally the same lines your bills or the main contract's pricing document use, so a tender reads straight across against the works. Keep preliminaries and attendances on their own lines rather than buried in the rates, because that is where the incomparable assumptions hide and separating them forces each tenderer to state their position. Ask for rates and quantities, not just line totals, so the arithmetic can be checked and a rate too keen to survive contact with the work stands out before you place the order. Include provisional or defined quantities where the design is not settled, so a tenderer cannot win on an optimistic guess about something you have not yet fixed. Leave a clearly marked place for qualifications, so exclusions are declared in the schedule rather than smuggled into a covering letter. Built this way, the schedule turns tender analysis into a levelling exercise it supports, and tells you where each price is fragile before you commit.

Question 3

Can someone check our tender price before we submit it?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the useful check is less about the total than about what the total silently owns: whether everything the enquiry asks for is priced or deliberately excluded, whether the build-ups and preliminaries hold together, and whether the qualifications actually protect the price. The quantities stay yours throughout; a review of this kind tests the pricing you have built rather than measuring the job again. A tender can be wrong in two ways, and the total only ever shows one of them. The number itself is the rarer problem; what the number quietly owns is where tenders actually lose money, and a pre-submission review works through that deliberately. Coverage first: every item the enquiry documents ask for should be either priced or expressly excluded, because anything that is neither becomes yours by silence the day the order is signed. Then the composition: rates read against the build-ups behind them, so a figure against the wrong unit or carried from a very different job gets caught while it is still a keystroke; preliminaries read as a priced list against the programme and site conditions, because a habit percentage does not know whether the job runs twelve weeks or thirty; and the arithmetic proven rather than assumed. Last, the qualifications: exclusions, assumptions and attendances drafted as one deliberate schedule that will survive a levelling meeting, rather than a pasted list that contradicts the enquiry. None of this needs the job re-measured. The quantities and price remain the tenderer's own; the review makes sure what goes in is complete, consistent and saying exactly what you intend, so the post-tender meeting holds no ambushes and a win is a number the job can be built for.

Question 4

How do I level tenders that are not like for like?

Accepted Answer

Read the qualifications before the totals, add every exclusion back at a fair value so each tender covers the same scope, check the arithmetic, and only then compare the adjusted numbers. Levelling is the work of adjusting every return until they all price the same job, because until they do, comparing the totals compares nothing. Start with the qualifications and exclusions, not the price, because the bottom line is the least reliable figure in a return and hides whatever the covering letter carved out. List what each tenderer excluded or qualified, then either price it back in at a fair value so their adjusted number covers the full scope, or flag it as a risk you would carry if you appointed them. Check the arithmetic while you are in there, because a transposed figure or a rate applied to the wrong quantity can make a tender look cheaper or dearer than intended, and placing an order on their error just buys the argument later. Break each price back to the schedule's lines so the comparison is item by item, the only way to see a keen rate on one section masking a padded one on another. Where a tenderer has plainly priced a different scope, quantify the difference. What comes out is a table of adjusted true costs, and the cheapest adjusted number is very often not the cheapest headline one, which is the entire point of doing this before you commit rather than discovering it as variations once the works are under way.

Question 5

How many subcontractors should I invite to tender?

Accepted Answer

Enough for genuine competition but few enough that each takes it seriously, usually three or four capable tenderers who have confirmed they will actually price it. The right number balances two opposing risks, and it is smaller than instinct suggests. Too few, and you have no real competition and no benchmark for whether a price is fair; a package let to a single quotation is a negotiation, not a tender. Too many, and each invitee knows their odds are poor, so the good subcontractors decline to spend a day pricing a job they probably will not win, and you are left with returns from whoever was quiet that week rather than whoever is best. Three or four capable tenderers is the usual sweet spot: enough for a spread and a benchmark, few enough that each treats the enquiry as worth a serious price. Quality matters more than quantity, so vet the list, invite subcontractors who can genuinely do the work to the programme, and confirm they intend to price it before the enquiry goes out, because a list of six that yields two real returns is worse than a list of three that all price properly. Give them enough time, since a rushed tender comes back hedged with qualifications, and keep the list consistent so you compare the market rather than a random sample of it. The aim is not the widest net; it is the smallest number of serious tenderers that still gives you a competitive, comparable set of returns.

FAQs for Procurement, Quantity Surveying

Frequently asked questions

Building and levelling enquiries

What should an invitation to tender pack contain?

How should I structure a pricing schedule for tenders?

How do I level tenders that are not like for like?

How many subcontractors should I invite to tender?

Can someone check our tender price before we submit it?