Sorting bid invitations into one decided bid board
An estimator opens a mailbox holding invitations from BuildingConnected, from iSqFt, from a plan room link that expires, and from a project manager who just attached the drawings. The same job arrives four times under four names because four generals are bidding it. What the go decision needs is small: bid date and time, the specification sections in scope, whether the job carries prevailing wage, and which general is asking. Matching duplicates against the project rather than against the sender is the part that is genuinely hard.
The estimate, the project system and the accounting system each hold a cost code structure, and the mapping between them lives in a spreadsheet maintained by one person.
A project generates a paper chain where each hop is a re-keying. A field condition becomes a time and materials tag, then a potential change order, then a priced request, then an executed change order, then a budget revision, then a line on the next payment application. Every hop is a place the amount can quietly diverge.
- Outlook
- Excel
- Slack
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if you bid a handful of negotiated jobs a year for owners who call you first, since there is no volume to sort. It is also wrong where your estimating team already lives inside one bid board and every general you serve invites you through it.
The constraint that shapes it
Lien deadlines are statutory, vary by state and by role, and run from a furnishing date rather than from an invoice date. More on how this sector works.
Something arrives from anywhere. It becomes one record with one owner. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Turning portal leads into one shape a person can work
- Turning an after hours maintenance call into one work order
- Entering a new client once instead of four times
- Filing client email to the matter instead of the inbox
- Booking a service call without a person typing it
- Sorting a return visit into callback or new work
- How do I stop the same bid invitation arriving from four generals?
- Can bid invitations be pulled out of email into one board?
- How do I know which invitations match the trades we self perform?
- Why do plan room download links expire before an estimator opens them?
- How do I track bid dates coming from several bidding platforms?
Back to construction and contracting, or see how this is priced and scoped.