Assemble Your Bid Package

What is a Bid Package?

A bid package is a set of documents describing the scope of work for the project, that contractors use to provide a bid.

Assembling the bid package is a simple matter of combining your planning phase documents with a couple templates that help inform contractors of bid process.

Use the steps in this section to finish filling out and assembling the following documents into a single bid package:

Take a look at what a finished Small Bid Package, or Large Bid Package can look like.

To make it easier to send to contractors assemble the bid package in 8 1/2″ x 11″ page size in a single pdf file in the following order:

Bid Package Cover Letter

The Bid Package Cover Letter introduces you and your project to the contractor. It explains what’s in the bid package and gives contractors their first impression of you, thanks them for their interest, provides brief instructions and lets them know they have competition.

Use this Bid Package Cover Letter and print it to an electronic file or to paper and file it.  This is the first document in your bid package.

Project Profile

The Project Profile gives contractors important information that helps them better understand the context of the project.

If you haven’t already completed the Project Profile Form, complete it now.

When done, attach it behind your Cover Letter.

Scope of Work Form

You probably have some left over notes in your Scope of Work. Use a blank copy of the Scope of Work Form and fill it in with the relevant items in your Scope of Work, so you know it’s clear.

If you have not completed the Scope of Work Form yet, finish it now, referring to Planning – The Project Scope of Work if you need help.

When done, add it to your bidder’s package after the Project Profile.

Project Budget

You should have already created your project budget in Planning – Assemble the Project Budget.

Don’t give contractors your complete breakdown. Instead, on the Project Profile Form in the project budget field, enter the project budget amount, less contingency.

Project Diagrams

If you have project diagrams, add them to the Bid Package. If not, or if you’re not sure if you needed them, refer to Planning – Project Diagramming and if needed, create them.

How you attach them, depends on how you will send the bid package to the contractors. If you are sending the package by mail, make a hard copy. If you are emailing the bid package, scan the images to a PDF and attach it to the same file in preparation to send to contractors.

Project Schedule

You want to make sure contractors have time to handle your project and that they can get it done within your schedule. The best way to do both is to review a project schedule, your contractor prepared.

You can ask the contractors to:

• Include schedule from two separate and similar projects
• Include a proposed project schedule for your project

To make this step easier, there is language already included in the Contractor Guidelines that requires contractors to provide and maintain a project schedule. Check out a sample construction sequence schedule here.

If contractors tell you that they do not have the capability to give you a basic construction schedule, give them a blank copy of the schedule sheets and ask them to fill them in by hand and return it to you. If they cooperate, identify them as “cooperative” in the ‘workability’ field on the Bid Comparison Form. If they are difficult, but do it anyway, identify them as “difficult” in the ‘workability’ field on the Bid Comparison Form and add 10% to the bidders’ total estimate to account for the additional costs that typically result from working with difficult contractors. If they don’t comply at all, identify them as “uncooperative” and add 20% to the bidders’ total estimate to account for the additional costs that uncooperative contractors commonly generate.

Contractor Guidelines

The Contractor Guidelines outline some basic contractor site operating rules. The Contractor Guidelines define and address how contractors must act and behave on the project site. This is especially important when they are doing work while you and others are living or operating in the same space.

Attach the Contractor Guidelines to your project bid package.

If needed, here are two additional sets of guidelines you should add to your bid package.

Home Owner Association Rules

Home owner associations often have additional rules that define how and when contractors can work within the community.

Likewise, commercial projects located within malls have similar requirements. The bylaws describe the requirements, and sometimes specify project design and material requirements. We talked about the best way to incorporate these requirements in the project plan, Planning – Who Selects What.

Attach a copy of any relevant association rules to the contractor guidelines, and add them to your Bid Package.

Make sure you mark the checkbox ‘See Homeowners Association Agreement’ on the Project Profile Form you have already started.

Long Distance Management Guidelines

The farther you are from the project, the more difficult it will be for you to keep an eye on it.

That’s when photo-documenting the project becomes much more important. The best technique is to require contractors to photo document any problems, difficulties, issues, and progress.

It’s best to address the importance of photo documentation, in the scope of work and contract documents. In some cases, you may want to include a provision for special documentation based on project complexity. Describe any special elements by making a list of all the parts of the project that are important to you, such as:

Identifying the items that require special observation in your bid documents helps ensure these items get the attention required during construction. You can give incentive to the winning bidder for taking pictures by such offering a bonus for each set of delivered pictures, and/or by providing the camera.

Use the Long Distance Management Guidelines and attach them to your project bid package.

Contractor Bid Form

The Bid Form is what contractor(s) fill out to give you their bids. It helps organize the bids so they are easier to compare. More importantly, how a contractor responds reveals how they play ball.

Most contractors will return their bid using the bid form. Some ask if they can use their own form. Others will ignore the form and submit their bid in whatever form they want.

Contractors who return their bid using the form you included in the bid package, will generally be the easiest to work with.

Contractors that ask if they can use their own form seemingly show some consideration, but are essentially asking you to change the rules. These contractors are more likely to ask you to change the rules during the project, and argue sooner about project issues. This second group requires more attention and management than the first and generates a certain additional level of stress and frustration.

Contractors that ignore the form completely are the most likely to blatantly ignore requests and requirements. They require the most oversight and management to ensure contract delivery and add the most stress and aggravation.

Attach a blank Bid Form to your project Bid Package, so your contractors can fill it out for you.

Don’t stop here; there is still a lot to do before the bidding phase is complete. We’ll talk about what you do when you receive bids in Bidding – Reviewing and Analyzing Bids.

Bid Submission Deadline

You should have already defined the amount of time that you need to complete the bidding process in Planning – Define the Project Schedule.

Take the amount of time you allowed it and cut it in half. The first half of the time is to give bidders enough time to come to the pre-bid meetings, look at the project, talk with subcontractors and vendors, assemble and deliver their bid.

To adequately review and analyze a handful of bids on even the smallest projects can easily take a few hours per week for a couple weeks or more, if you really work diligently. The remaining time is for you to properly review and analyze the bids as discussed in Bidding – Reviewing and Analyzing Bids.

Choose a bid deadline date that corresponds with the time frame prior to the required project start date and indicate that date on the Project Profile form you have already started.

This should give both you and the contractor approximately two to three weeks to complete your respective portions of the activity.