Before the writing matters
The compliance list that decides whether you're read at all
A bid that breaks one of the buyer's own rules is set aside without being marked at all. Clear this list before you spend a week on the answers.
Or call 07984 845440, or email [email protected].
Pass or fail comes first
Read the selection questionnaire before anything else, because it sets the pass-or-fail requirements. They're usually accounts, insurance levels, references and policies, and if you can't meet one of those no amount of writing fixes it.
- Accounts for the years they ask for, in the form they ask for, and turnover inside any threshold they've set.
- Insurance at the levels stated, held now or with written confirmation you can hold them on award.
- References of the type and recency they've asked for, from contacts who know they've been named.
- Every policy on their list, current, dated and signed by whoever is supposed to have signed it.
- Registrations, accreditations or memberships they've made mandatory, held in the bidding entity's own name.
- The bidding entity itself, matching the name and number on your accounts, your insurance and your registration.
If one of these is missing, the honest question is whether to bid at all this time. That decision has its own page and its own scorecard.
Where the pass-or-fail line actually sits
Tender compliance means meeting every requirement the buyer set out about who can bid and how the bid must arrive. It sits before quality scoring, and it is pass or fail. The government's own advice to suppliers puts it plainly: meet all the requirements asked for.
Format rules are compliance too
Everything on this list is checkable in an afternoon, and almost none of it gets checked by the person writing the answers.
- Word or character limits, counted in the same way the buyer counts them, per answer rather than in total.
- Page limits, font sizes and margins where the pack specifies them.
- Their template used as issued, without rows removed, headings renamed or tabs added.
- File formats and file names exactly as instructed, including any reference number they've asked you to use.
- Every attachment they asked for, and nothing they asked you not to send.
- Pricing entered where the pricing goes, and nowhere else, if they've said price must not appear in the quality answers.
A price mentioned inside a quality answer can make the bid non-compliant on its own. It happens by accident.
The portal is part of the deadline
Test it early. A portal under load at the close of a national opportunity is slower than the one you tested on. Treat the buyer's stated closing time as a hard wall, in their time zone, and plan to be finished well ahead of it.
- Register on the portal early, and check that the person who will press submit has an account and access.
- Upload a draft version well before the close so you learn how the portal behaves.
- Check whether submission needs a second action after upload, because on some systems an uploaded file is not a submitted bid.
- Save the confirmation, with its timestamp and reference.
Clarifications close before the tender does
There's a separate, earlier deadline for questions, and it's easy to miss while you're writing. If a criterion, a weighting or a mandatory requirement is unclear, ask through their process rather than guessing, and read how the answers are scored before you decide what to ask.
Read every clarification the buyer publishes, including answers to other bidders' questions. They change the requirement for everybody, they're issued after you started writing, and an answer drafted before one lands is answering the question the buyer has already moved on from.
The final sweep, before you press submit
- Every question answered, in their order, inside their limits.
- Every mandatory document attached, current and signed.
- Every file opened as a stranger would, with tracked changes, comments and file properties checked.
- The pricing schedule added up independently, and its totals checked against the written answers.
- The bidding entity's name and number the same on every document.
- The submission confirmed on the portal, with the confirmation saved.
If nobody in the building has time to run that sweep, that's what a fixed-fee review is for. It reads the pack and the bid together, against the criteria, and names what would fail before the buyer does.
Or have somebody run the sweep for you
You hear back within 24 hours. If you send a deadline, you hear inside one working day whether we can meet it, and that comes before you pay anything.