Turning a bid invitation into a priced bid, without retyping or guessing counts

The short answer. To turn a general contractor's invitation to bid into a priced bid, split what it contains into terms that cost money and quantities. Run every invitation through a fixed checklist of terms (bid date, scope sections, alternates, bid or performance bonds, insurance limits, liquidated damages, working hours and prevailing wage requirements) and write a page reference beside each answer; on federal work, bid guarantees follow FAR 28.101-1. Every quantity should come from a schedule in the documents, a takeoff of the drawings, or an allowance the documents call for, and a count none of those gives is left blank and flagged for takeoff, never guessed or copied from an earlier bid.

A general contractor's invitation to bid arrives as a PDF, often forty pages or more. Somewhere in it are the bid date, the scope sections that are yours, the alternates, and a handful of requirements that cost money: a bid or performance bond, unusual insurance limits, liquidated damages, night or weekend work. Somewhere else, maybe in a fixture schedule, maybe only on the drawings, are the counts your price depends on.

The usual way through it is an estimator with a highlighter and a copy of the last similar bid. Both habits cause trouble. The highlighter misses a page, and the copied workbook carries last year's prices and last job's quantities into this year's number. This article is about a steadier way: what to pull out of an invitation, where each count should come from, and which ones you must never guess.

Last reviewed: November 11, 2026

Two kinds of information, two different rules

It helps to split what's in an invitation into two piles, because they need different handling.

Terms that cost money. Dates, scope sections, alternates, bonds, insurance, liquidated damages, working hours, prevailing wage requirements. These are read, not counted. The risk is missing one, so the defense is a fixed checklist that every invitation goes through, with a page reference written next to each answer. "Not mentioned" is an answer too, and different from "didn't look."

Quantities. These come from three places, and every quantity in your bid should say which:

  • A schedule in the documents, such as a light fixture schedule that gives types and counts. Use it, and note the sheet.
  • Your takeoff, on screen or on paper, from the drawings.
  • An allowance, where the documents tell you to carry a figure.

What a quantity should never be is a guess, or a number left over from the bid you copied. If the documents don't give a count and nobody has done the takeoff yet, the honest entry is blank, flagged for takeoff, so the bid can't be priced as though it were done.

A worked example

The figures here are illustrative, made up for this article.

Say an invitation for an office fit-out includes a fixture schedule: 140 type A troffers, 36 type B downlights and 12 type C exit signs. It also says the work in two occupied floors has to happen after 6 p.m., and it asks for a deduct alternate to drop the lighting controls upgrade.

Priced from your library, the fixtures might come to 520 labor hours at a $78 crew rate, about $40,560 of labor. Now look at what happens if the night work clause is missed. Suppose 200 of those hours fall in the occupied floors and your night premium is 15%. That's 200 times $78 times 0.15, or $2,340, missing from the bid before anyone has bought a fixture. Miss the bond requirement on a public job as well and the gap grows again.

Now the counts. The fixture schedule gave the troffers, downlights and exit signs, so those are "from schedule." The receptacles and data outlets aren't on any schedule. If the estimator copies 210 receptacles from last month's similar office, the bid looks finished but rests on someone else's building. Left blank and flagged, it waits for a half hour of takeoff instead.

Doing it better in a spreadsheet

You don't need new software to tighten this up. A few habits in the workbook make a real difference.

  • Start every bid from a blank template, never a copy of the last bid. Pull prices from one library sheet by item code, so a price is changed in one place.
  • Put a date and a source beside every price in the library, and highlight anything older than 90 days for a fresh quote.
  • Add an invitation tab with the fixed checklist: bid date, scope sections, alternates, bond, insurance, liquidated damages, working hours, wage requirements. Each answer gets a page number.
  • Add a "source" column to every quantity: schedule, takeoff or allowance. A quantity with no source is formatted red, and the bid isn't sent while any are red.
  • Price each alternate on its own lines, so an add or deduct is never worked out by subtracting in your head.

The limits are the usual ones. The invitation is still read by hand, the template still drifts as people "improve" it, and once the bid is won the budget is retyped from the estimate.

How a system does it

The demo is Corliss Electric, a fictional electrical subcontractor with two years of bids behind it. In it, the AI helper reads a general contractor's invitation to bid into a draft bid: the dates, the scope sections, the alternates, the requirements that cost money, and the counts it can actually see, such as a fixture schedule. It never invents a quantity. Anything it can't count is left empty and flagged for takeoff. The estimator checks the draft beside the PDF and confirms it; nothing becomes a bid on the AI's word alone.

The demo carries three sample invitations to try: an office fit-out with a fixture schedule, a school gym on public money with bonds, prevailing wages and a deduct alternate, and a medical office with no counts at all and an unusual insurance demand.

Once confirmed, the bid is priced live from the assembly and unit-cost library: lines by area, material and sales tax, labor hours at the crew rate, subcontracts, equipment, allowances, overhead, profit and bond. Every price carries its date and source, and prices older than 90 days are flagged. Alternates are priced on their own, and each revision after an addendum lists what changed. The proposal reads like a letter on the company's paper, as a PDF, with the estimate behind it in Excel. Mark the bid won and the job is created with its contract and a budget by cost code, so nothing is retyped.

The AI reads; the rules price; the estimator decides what goes out.

See it for yourself

The estimating and change orders page covers the whole system, from the library to the bid log and change orders. The live demo lets you have the AI read a bid invitation, price the bid from the library, and turn a won bid into a job budget. Sign in with one click, with no account; the data resets every night, so you can't break anything.

A typical build costs $8,000 to $25,000 at a fixed price, hosting and support start at $350 a month, and there's no fee per estimator.

Questions

What should I check in an invitation to bid before pricing it?

The terms that cost money: the bid date, the scope sections, alternates, bid or performance bonds, insurance limits, liquidated damages, working hours such as night or weekend work, and prevailing wage requirements. Write the page reference beside each answer, and record "not mentioned" when the invitation is silent.

Where should the quantities in a bid come from?

From a schedule in the bid documents, such as a light fixture schedule, from a takeoff of the drawings, or from an allowance the documents tell you to carry. A quantity with none of those sources should stay blank and flagged for takeoff.

Is it safe to start a new bid from a copy of the last one?

It is risky, because the copied workbook carries old prices and the last job's quantities into the new number. Starting each bid from a blank template that pulls prices from one dated library avoids that.