Instructions to Tenderers: Writing the Rules That Keep a Tender Fair

The instructions to tenderers decide what you receive, how you may evaluate it and what happens if a bidder breaks the rules. Here is how to build that document properly.

Instructions to tenderers is the only document in the pack that governs the process rather than the work. It sets the timetable, the submission format, the evaluation basis and the consequences of non compliance. Written well, it gives you the right to reject a bid that games the process. Written as an afterthought, it leaves you negotiating from a position you created yourself.

Before stage one

Before drafting, you need a decided procurement strategy, a confirmed bidder list, a realistic tender period and agreement on how the bids will be evaluated. You also need to know whether your project is subject to any procurement framework through a funder, a public body or an electronic tendering platform such as Etimad, because those frameworks impose their own process rules. Requirements of this kind are revised from time to time, so confirm what applies to your project before you issue anything.

• Confirm the bidder list is final and that each bidder has passed prequalification.
• Fix the tender period against the real complexity of the pricing, not against an internal deadline.
• Agree the evaluation method and weightings internally, in writing, before issue.
• Identify the single point of contact for all tender correspondence.
• Check whether any external framework or platform governs the process.

Stage 1: State the scope and the documents that form the tender

Open with a short description of the works and a numbered list of every document issued, with revision numbers and dates. The list is what prevents an argument later about whether a bidder saw a particular drawing. Say explicitly that only the listed documents form the basis of the tender and that no verbal information counts. If documents will be issued in stages, say when and how.

• Deliverable: A document register with revisions, and a statement that it is exhaustive.
• Owner: The person administering the tender.
• Approval gate: Every file in the issued pack appears on the register with a matching revision.

Stage 2: Set the timetable and the rules for extending it

Publish the dates for site visits, the deadline for queries, the date of the final addendum, the submission deadline and the expected award window. State the time zone and the exact moment the deadline falls. Then say what happens if an extension is granted: that it applies to all bidders, that it will be issued by addendum and that no bidder may rely on an informal extension. A tender period shorter than the pricing genuinely requires produces qualified bids, so resist compressing it.

• Deliverable: A published timetable with a stated deadline and an extension procedure.
• Owner: The project lead.
• Approval gate: The query deadline leaves enough time to issue a final addendum before bids are priced.

Stage 3: Define the submission format precisely

Specify the files, the structure and the separation between the technical and the commercial submission if you intend to evaluate them separately. Require the pricing document to be returned fully priced with no blank items, state how a bidder should treat an item it believes is not required, and require a single schedule for any qualification or assumption. Tell bidders what you will do with a submission that is incomplete or in the wrong format, and be willing to do it.

• Deliverable: A submission checklist that a bidder can tick off before sending.
• Owner: The commercial manager.
• Approval gate: A colleague who has not seen the project can assemble a compliant submission from the instructions alone.

Stage 4: Write the query and addendum procedure

Name the single channel for queries, require them in writing, and state that answers will be issued by numbered addendum to all bidders with the question anonymised. Prohibit contact with the designer, the end user or anyone else on the project team during the tender period. Make clear that each addendum forms part of the tender documents and that bidders must acknowledge receipt in their submission. This is the clause that keeps the process defensible.

• Deliverable: A query log template and a numbered addendum series.
• Owner: The tender administrator.
• Approval gate: The final addendum is issued and acknowledged by every bidder before the deadline.

Stage 5: Publish the evaluation basis

Say how you will evaluate: whether on price alone, on price and quality with stated weightings, or on a two stage basis. Describe the quality criteria in enough detail that a bidder knows what to write about, such as the proposed programme, the method statement for a critical element, the named site team and the subcontract strategy. Publishing the weightings raises the quality of the submissions, because bidders invest effort where it counts rather than producing a generic brochure.

• Deliverable: An evaluation section setting out criteria, weightings and the scoring approach.
• Owner: The project lead with the commercial manager.
• Approval gate: The published criteria match the scoring matrix the panel will actually use.

Stage 6: Set out the conditions of tendering and your reserved rights

Cover tender validity period, costs borne by bidders, confidentiality, your right to reject a non compliant or abnormally low bid, your right not to award, and the treatment of errors in the priced document. State whether an arithmetical error will be corrected and the total adjusted, or whether the total governs and the rates are adjusted, because that single choice decides several arguments. Where the project requires tender security, state the form, the amount basis and when it will be returned.

• Deliverable: A conditions of tendering section with each reserved right stated expressly.
• Owner: Legal counsel, with the commercial manager.
• Approval gate: The error correction rule and the rejection rights are unambiguous.

Stage 7: Require the information you will need after award

Ask in the tender for what you will otherwise chase for weeks after award: the proposed programme, the organisation chart with named individuals, the subcontractor and supplier list for key packages, the security and insurance proposals, the cash flow forecast and the rates for valuing change. Asking at tender stage means the information is competitive rather than negotiated, and it also tells you a great deal about how the bidder works.

• Deliverable: A schedule of returnable documents, each with a stated purpose.
• Owner: The commercial manager.
• Approval gate: Nothing on the post award mobilisation checklist is missing from the returnables.

Handovers between stages

The instructions hand over to the evaluation panel, and the handover fails when the panel starts inventing criteria that were never published. Give the panel the instructions and the scoring matrix together at the briefing, and make the chair responsible for rejecting any argument that relies on an unpublished criterion. The second handover is to the contract: the instructions, the queries and the addenda all become part of the contract documents, so the person assembling the execution set needs the complete numbered series rather than a folder of emails.

How you know it is finished

The document is finished when a competent bidder could run the whole process from it without asking you a single procedural question, and when you could defend every step of your evaluation by pointing at a published paragraph. Read it one last time from the bidder side and look for any place where you have taken a discretion without saying so, because an unstated discretion is the one that gets challenged.

Domira builds and supervises projects across Saudi Arabia, and the commercial discipline above is how its projects stay inside their budget and their programme. Send the drawings, the contract or the site and Domira will tell you where the risk actually sits.