Bid or no bid: a checklist for public work
Why a bid/no-bid step exists
A public bid costs real time. An estimator reads the documents, takes off quantities, calls subcontractors and suppliers, builds the number and assembles the forms. For a small general or heavy-civil contractor that can be days of the busiest person in the company. If the bid cannot be submitted, or cannot be won, or would be a bad job to win, all of that is spent for nothing.
A bid/no-bid decision is a short, written screen that runs before the estimate. It does not need to be clever. It needs to be done every time, in the same order, with the same questions, so that a tight week does not turn into "we will just bid it."
The checklist below is built for state and municipal construction solicitations. Check your own contract documents and your own surety and insurance arrangements for the specifics. Nothing here is legal, bonding or insurance advice.
Step 1: the knockout questions
Answer these first. A "no" to any of them usually ends the discussion, so there is no point weighing the rest.
- Are you eligible to bid? Look for a required contractor licence class, registration with the agency, prequalification, or a required business classification.
- Can you meet the deadline? Note the bid due date and time, the time zone, and how the bid must be delivered. Also note the deadline for questions, which falls earlier.
- Can you attend any mandatory pre-bid meeting or site visit? If attendance is required to bid and the date has passed or clashes with something you cannot move, that is a knockout.
- Can you provide the bonds? Look for a bid bond or a bid security alternative, and for the performance and payment bonds required if you win. Compare the contract value against the single-job limit your surety gives you. The bonding guide explains the three bond types.
- Can you meet the insurance requirements? Compare each required limit and endorsement with the policies you actually hold.
- Can you meet any participation goal? Some public work sets a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise or similar goal. Read whether it is a goal or a firm requirement, and what the solicitation says about good-faith efforts.
Step 2: the documents you actually have
Before you decide anything, confirm you hold the whole package. A decision made on part of a package is a guess.
- The base solicitation or invitation to bid
- Every appendix, attachment and form referenced in it
- Every addendum issued so far (see the addenda guide)
- The plans and specifications, if they are separate files
- Any document mentioned in the text that you cannot find in the package
Make a short list of anything referenced but missing, and ask for it. Also look at the page count of what you received against what the table of contents promises.
Step 3: the terms that decide whether the job is a good job
Passing the knockouts means you can bid. These questions decide whether you should.
- Payment terms. How soon are invoices paid, and what is the retainage rate and when is it released?
- Liquidated damages. What is the daily rate, and is the schedule realistic against your current work?
- Contract time. Does the start and completion window fit your crews and your equipment?
- Scope and risk. Who carries differing site conditions, unforeseen utilities, material price changes or permitting delays?
- Bid validity. How long must your price stay open after bid day?
- Award basis. Is it lowest responsive and responsible bidder, or something scored? A scored award changes how much effort the proposal needs.
- Your backlog. Can you crew and supervise this job without hurting the ones you have already won?
Step 4: write the decision down
Use a one-page record so decisions can be compared. A simple version has these rows.
| Item | What the documents say | Your position | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence and registration | Class and registration named | What you hold | Pass or fail |
| Bonds | Bid, performance, payment | Your single-job limit | Pass or fail |
| Insurance | Each limit and endorsement | Your policies | Pass or fail |
| Participation goal | Percentage and rules | Your plan | Pass, fail or open |
| Dates | Questions, meeting, bid | Your calendar | Pass or fail |
| Terms | Retainage, damages, time | Your tolerance | Good, caution or poor |
End with one of three outcomes: bid, bid with conditions that you list, or pass. "Bid with conditions" is useful. For example, "bid if the surety confirms the larger bond" or "bid if a certified subcontractor quotes the trade".
Common mistakes
- Deciding from the cover page and the scope summary, and finding the bond percentage on page 140 after the estimate is built.
- Reading the base document and missing that an addendum changed a bond, a date or a limit.
- Assuming last year's insurance requirement still applies.
- Treating a participation goal as optional without reading what the document says about it.
- Not recording why you passed, so the same job gets re-debated next time.
How Biddossier does this step
Biddossier is built for step 1 of this checklist: getting the knockout requirements out of a long package, and setting them against your limits.
You upload the solicitation, its appendices and every addendum, as text PDF, Word, text or Markdown files, up to 8 files and 300 pages in total. You can add a short firm profile with your bonding limits, insurance limits, licence classes and DBE status. Biddossier quotes each bonding, insurance, DBE, eligibility and deadline requirement with its document and page, and code checks that each quote is on the page it names. Performance and payment bonds and insurance limits are compared with your profile by plain arithmetic, and licence classes by matching their words. A DBE goal is quoted with your stated DBE status next to it, for you to judge.
For step 2, the dossier lists every file it read and how many of its pages had text, but it does not find a document that is referenced and missing from the package. It quotes the contract time when the documents state one, but it does not read payment terms, retainage or liquidated damages, so the rest of step 3 stays with you.
It lists the categories where it found nothing and any page with no readable text. Scanned pages are not read yet, so those are named for you to read yourself. It suggests Go, Caution or No-Go, and it is a decision aid, not legal, bonding or insurance advice. A second, stronger AI model reviews every result and lists what is left for you to decide; the drafting model corrects the serious problems the review finds, and code checks every correction. Results are not verified by a person. The decision stays with you.
You get a dossier PDF, a requirements table as CSV and the full result as JSON. One solicitation is 20 credits, whatever its length up to 300 pages, with no subscription. Sign up to try it on your next package.
Questions
- How long should a bid/no-bid decision take?
- A small fraction of the time the estimate would take, once you have the full package. The point is to find the disqualifiers early. If a bond, a licence or a mandatory meeting rules you out, you want to know before the estimate starts, not after.
- Should I ever bid on a job I would normally pass on?
- Sometimes, for a reason you can name: a new agency you want to be known by, slack in your schedule, or a client relationship. Write the reason down, so the decision is deliberate and you can look back at it later.
- What if the documents contradict each other?
- Write the contradiction down and send a written question to the contact named in the solicitation before the question deadline. Do not pick the reading that suits you. The answer often comes back as an addendum.
See what your next bid requires.
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