How to read a bid solicitation

Read for the three things that disqualify

A solicitation can run from two pages to several hundred, and most of it is terms that are the same on every purchase that agency makes. Contractors new to public work either read all of it and run out of time, or read none of it and price from the title. Neither works. On a first pass you are looking for three things: can you submit at all, what exactly is being bought, and how the winner is chosen. Everything else can wait until you have decided to bid.

First, what kind of document is it

The name on the cover tells you how the award will be made, and agencies use these names fairly consistently:

• Invitation for bids (IFB or ITB), or "sealed bid". You submit a price on the agency's form. The award goes on price to a bidder whose bid meets every stated requirement. There is usually no negotiation, so a missing form or signature can lose it.
• Request for proposals (RFP). You submit a written proposal as well as a price. The agency scores it on factors the document lists, and price is only one of them.
• Request for quotes (RFQ). A simpler request for a price, common on smaller purchases, often with a short turnaround.
• Request for qualifications or for information (RFQ again, or RFI). Not a bid for work yet. The agency is collecting qualifications or asking the market questions.

The initials overlap, so read the first paragraph instead of trusting them.

Second, the page of dates

Find every date before you read anything else, and write them down with the stated time zone:

• The due date and time, and where and how the bid is delivered. An upload portal, an email address and a clerk's counter fail in different ways.
• The pre-bid meeting or site visit, and whether it is mandatory. If attendance is mandatory and you missed it, you are done with this one.
• The deadline for written questions. After it, the agency will not answer.
• How long your price must hold after opening.

Dates change. Changes are issued as addenda or amendments, and you are responsible for the latest one. Our guide to tracking addenda covers how to keep up.

Third, who may bid

Look for a section headed eligibility, qualifications, responsibility or minimum requirements. This is where a notice says the bidder must hold a particular license, have a number of years or similar projects behind it, carry stated insurance limits, be registered in a named vendor system, or belong to a group the purchase is reserved for. Federal notices state on the first page whether the purchase is set aside for small businesses or a particular program; set-asides are explained here.

Take these literally. If a requirement is unclear, the question deadline exists for exactly that.

Fourth, the scope

The scope of work, statement of work or specifications is the only part that describes the job, and it is the part to read slowly. Mark every quantity, frequency, location, access restriction and working-hours rule, and anything the contractor supplies that you might have assumed the agency would. On service contracts, look for the term and the renewal options: a "one year" janitorial contract is often one year plus several optional years at prices you set now.

Then find the price form. Price exactly what it asks for in the units it asks for. A lump sum where the form wants unit prices is a common reason a low bid is thrown out.

Fifth, what must be in the envelope

Somewhere there is a list of what a complete submission contains: the price form, signed acknowledgment of each addendum, a bid bond if one is required (what that is), insurance certificates, license copies, references, required affidavits. Turn that list into your own checklist the day you decide to bid, not the morning it is due.

Where to look in a federal solicitation

Federal solicitations for negotiated purchases usually follow one layout, the uniform contract format in FAR 15.204-1, with lettered sections. Four of them answer most first-pass questions:

• Section B, supplies or services and prices: what you are pricing.
• Section C, description, specifications or statement of work: the job.
• Section L, instructions to offerors: what to submit and how.
• Section M, evaluation factors for award: how the winner is chosen.

Read L and M before you write a word of a proposal. A proposal organized the way Section L asks and aimed at the factors in Section M is easier to score than a better one that is not. State and local documents do not use these letters, but they almost always contain the same four things under plainer headings.

Decide early

A first pass like this takes twenty minutes and ends in a decision: bid, ask a question, or pass. Passing quickly on work that does not fit is how a small shop finds time to bid well on work that does. A summary of a notice, including ours, is for deciding whether to open it. The official document, with its latest addendum, is what you bid to.