Requesting vendor bids

FullClarity lets you send the items from a cost estimate out to your suppliers and subcontractors for pricing, then collect their responses in one place. You raise a single bid request, choose the items and vendors, and each vendor receives an email with a secure link to an online bid form. As bids come back, you can compare what each vendor offered against the same set of items before deciding who to award the work to.

The workflow has three parts:

1. Raise a bid request against an estimate, choosing the items and vendors
2. Send the invitations so each vendor receives a link to their online bid form
3. Review the responses as vendors submit their pricing (or decline)

When to use this

Use this when you want competitive pricing for the items in an estimate — for example, sending a list of materials to several suppliers, or a scope of work to a few subcontractors, and asking each to quote. Because every vendor bids against the same items and quantities, the responses are easy to compare side by side.

Prerequisites

• An existing project with at least one estimate that contains the items you want priced. Vendors bid on the items from that estimate, so the estimate must exist first.
• The vendors you want to invite exist in NetSuite with a contact email address.
• Access to the project record's Estimating subtab.

Walkthrough

Step 1: Raise the bid request

On the project record, open the Estimating subtab, then choose Bid Request → New Vendor Bid Request.

Fill in the request details:

• Estimate — choose the estimate you want to bid against. The items you can send out are drawn from this estimate.
• Title — a label for the request, e.g. "Concrete supply — CBD Office Fitout".
• Due Date — the date you want bids returned by. This is shown to vendors on their bid form.
• Reminder lead time — how many days before the due date a reminder email is sent. This defaults to 15 days.
• Instructions — free text explaining what you need. This text is shown to the vendor on their online bid form, so use it to set expectations (scope notes, site conditions, how to ask questions, and so on).

Step 2: Add the items to bid out

Use Add Items from Estimate to choose which lines you want vendors to price.

• Tick a whole cost section or category to include every line beneath it, or
• Pick individual lines if you only want a subset priced.

Step 3: Attach supporting files (optional)

If you have supporting documents you want vendors to refer to — drawings, a specification, a scope document — attach them to the bid request so they appear on each vendor's bid form.

On the bid request (either while creating it, or by editing it afterwards), open the Files subtab. It lists the documents already held against the project; tick the ones you want to include with this request, then Save. Every invited vendor can then download the ticked files from their online bid form.

Step 4: Confirm the vendors

FullClarity automatically suggests the vendors who supply the items you've selected, so the list is usually pre-populated for you.

You can add any other vendors you'd like to invite, or remove suggested vendors you don't want to approach.

When you Save, the request creates one bid per vendor — each vendor gets their own copy to respond to independently.

Step 5: Send the invitations

You can send the invitations in two ways:

• Send Bid Emails — sends to every vendor on the request at once.
• Open an individual bid and choose Send Email — sends to just that one vendor (useful if you add a vendor after the first send, or need to resend to one supplier).

Each vendor receives an email containing a secure link to an online bid form. The link is unique to that vendor.

After sending, you can use Send Reminder to nudge a vendor who hasn't responded yet. A reminder is also sent automatically based on the reminder lead time you set in Step 1.

What the vendor sees and does

When a vendor opens the secure link from their email, they see an online bid form showing:

• The job details and your Instructions
• The list of items you're asking them to price, with quantities — but not your costs
• Any supporting files you attached to the request, which they can download

For each line, the vendor enters a Rate, and the line Amount calculates automatically. A running total at the bottom of the form updates as they price each line, so they can see the overall value of their bid at a glance. They can also:

• Add Comments, Inclusions and Exclusions to clarify what their pricing covers
• Attach a supporting file — for example, a PDF of their own formal quote. They can drag a file onto the upload area or click to browse, and it's sent along with their bid.

The vendor then either:

• Clicks Submit to send their priced bid back to you, or
• Uses Decline to opt out, choosing one or more decline reasons.

Once a vendor submits or declines, their response is locked — re-opening the link shows a Response Already Submitted message instead of the form, so a bid you've already received can't be changed underneath you. If a vendor needs to revise their bid, re-send the invitation from the bid request and the form re-opens for them.

Step 6: Review the responses

Back on the bid request in NetSuite, each vendor's bid appears against the request. For each one you can see:

• The status — sent, received, or declined
• The amounts the vendor entered, along with any comments, inclusions and exclusions
• Any files the vendor attached — saved against their bid, showing the vendor as who uploaded them
• For a declined bid, the decline reasons they selected

From here you review and compare the responses, then proceed with awarding the work — for example, by raising purchase orders against the estimate. See Creating purchase orders from the estimate for that next step.

What success looks like

Each invited vendor has a bid against your request showing their status. Vendors who responded show the rates and amounts they entered (plus any attachments and notes), and any who declined show their reasons. You have everything you need to compare like-for-like and decide who to award the work to.

Gotchas

• You need an estimate first. Vendors bid on the items from an estimate, so create and populate the estimate before raising a bid request.
• Vendors need an email address. A vendor with no contact email can't receive the invitation. Check the vendor record before sending.
• Vendors never see your costs. Only item, description and quantity are shared — this is by design, so don't expect your rates or margins to appear on the bid form.
• Don't see Bid Request on the Estimating subtab? The feature needs to be enabled by your administrator in the system settings.

Related topics

• Creating an estimate
• Adding lines to an estimate
• Creating purchase orders from the estimate