What a procurement profile carries
Each profile is a short brief that Bidligence's Super Intelligence works from whenever it reads, scores, writes or prices a bid. It holds:
The global profile is the default and the reference: international competitive bidding under multilateral development bank standard procurement documents, such as the World Bank's SPD for works and ADB's standard bidding documents, one- or two-envelope, evaluated on the lowest evaluated substantially responsive bid or on rated criteria. Its typical buyers include the World Bank, ADB, AfDB, EBRD, IDB, JICA, UNDP and UNOPS, EU EuropeAid and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Nothing in Bidligence requires a regional profile. A new workspace starts on the global profile, and when the analysis meets a tender from a country without a profile of its own, it records the closest one, or the global profile for a development-bank-funded or multi-country tender.
- the bid currency the profile suggests for a new bid;
- the procurement rules: the law or standard documents, the procedure and how bids are evaluated;
- the typical tender authorities, from ministries and road agencies to national e-procurement portals;
- the standards a technical response is expected to cite;
- the market context and price references that BOQ pricing is calibrated to;
- local content or social value notes, where the profile has them, and a time zone for the deadline until the tender's own is read.
Examples from the profiles
A sample of what the profiles hold today, abridged:
| Profile | Procurement rules it carries | Standards it names |
|---|---|---|
| Global (default) | MDB standard procurement documents; one- or two-envelope; lowest evaluated substantially responsive bid or rated criteria; bid security and debarment rules | FIDIC Red, Yellow and Silver Book 2017; ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001; World Bank Environmental and Social Framework; IFC Performance Standards |
| United States | FAR and DFARS for federal work; state procurement codes; sealed bids or best-value RFPs; Davis-Bacon wages; Buy American; Miller Act bonds | ACI, AASHTO, ASTM, OSHA 29 CFR 1926, AISC, IBC |
| United Kingdom | Procurement Act 2023; Find a Tender notices; most advantageous tender; social value weighting | BS EN Eurocodes, CDM 2015, NEC4 / JCT, BREEAM, PAS 2080 |
| European Union | Directive 2014/24/EU; ESPD self-declaration; MEAT with life-cycle costing | Eurocodes EN 1990–1999, CE marking / CPR, EU Taxonomy |
| India | GFR 2017; CVC guidelines; two-bid system, technical then financial; EMD; L1 award | IS (BIS), IRC, MoRTH specifications, NBC 2016 |
| Kenya | Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act 2015; AGPO reservations; NCA registration | KS (KEBS), MoTI specifications, EAS, FIDIC |
| South Africa | PPPFA and the Preferential Procurement Regulations 2022; CIDB grading; B-BBEE scoring | SANS, COLTO, JBCC / GCC 2015 / NEC |
| Singapore | GeBIZ tenders; BCA contractor registration grades; price-quality method | SS EN Eurocodes, BCA Green Mark, WSH Act, PSSCOC |
| Brazil | Lei 14.133/2021; SINAPI and SICRO reference prices as ceilings | ABNT NBR, DNIT specifications, NR safety norms |
For how the development banks' bidding documents are put together, read World Bank bidding documents explained.
How it works
The profile and the currencies follow a bid from the first screen to the last:
- 1Set your defaults. You choose a reporting currency when you create your workspace, and a default procurement profile in Settings, which is pre-selected for every new bid.
- 2Start a bid. Pick the profile and the bid currency. The currency follows the profile (pounds for the UK profile, rupees for India) until you choose one yourself; the global profile starts in your reporting currency.
- 3Analyse the tender. The analysis reads the documents with the profile as context, then records the profile closest to the tender, using the global one for development-bank-funded or multi-country tenders, and the bid takes it. It also records the procurement framework, contract type and evaluation method the tender itself states. You can change the profile the analysis starts from on the upload step; the profile the analysis records is the one the Bid Score, the documents and the BOQ build-up then work from.
- 4Score and write. The tender summary that the Bid Score, the bid documents and the completion of the tender's own forms work from carries the profile's rules, buyers, standards and market context.
- 5Price the BOQ. Rates are built in the bid currency and calibrated to the profile's market: the web research for current prices is pointed at its price references and search terms, such as RSMeans and state DOT bid tabulations in the US, CPWD DSR and state schedules of rates in India, or SINAPI and SICRO in Brazil.
- 6Report in your currency. The BOQ shows the bid price in the bid currency with an approximate figure in the bid's reporting currency, and the dashboard totals your pipeline and won value in your workspace's reporting currency.
100 currencies, with exchange rates refreshed daily
The currency picker lists 100 currencies, from the US dollar, euro and pound to the Kenyan shilling, Indian rupee, Brazilian real, UAE dirham and CFA franc. Exchange rates come from a public exchange-rate feed and are refreshed once a day. Every rate is stored against the US dollar, and a cross rate, say Kenyan shillings to pounds, is worked out from the two dollar rates. If a stored rate is more than a day old when it is needed, Bidligence refreshes it in the background; if a currency has no stored rate at all, it fetches one before converting.
A bid keeps one exchange rate to its reporting currency, set when the bid is created and refreshed whenever its currencies are saved, so every approximate figure on the bid uses the same number. The Configure step shows the current rate beside the two currencies, or says that no rate is available.
Where an amount cannot be converted, it is held back, never treated as one-for-one:
- Supplier quotes: a quote in a currency with no rate to the package's currency stays on file, but its rates are left out of the comparison and cannot be applied to your BOQ until they are entered in the package currency.
- Dashboard and analytics: pipeline and won value leave out bids whose currency cannot be converted, and the figure says how many bids it excludes.
- The rate library: a price point in a currency that cannot be converted is left out of the blended rate instead of being counted at face value.
- Cost to bid: the Bid Score's cost-to-bid estimate is converted into the bid's reporting currency, and left blank when there is no rate.
- Changing currency: a conversion that has no rate is refused, and the bid keeps its currency.
Changing a bid's currency: convert or relabel
Once a BOQ has priced rates, a currency change is a decision, not a field edit. Bidligence asks which you mean. Convert multiplies every base, market and final rate, and the tender's estimated value, by one exchange rate in the same save, and flags every document already generated for update because it quotes the old numbers. Relabel keeps the numbers exactly as typed and changes only the currency shown, which is right when a tender was simply labelled wrongly. Converting cannot be undone from that screen.
Re-analysing a tender never re-prices a BOQ behind your back. The analysis adopts the tender's currency only while the bid has no BOQ lines; after that, if the tender reads as priced in another currency, the bid stays as it is and the activity log says so. An RFQ package issued in the old currency has to be re-issued in the new one before its rates can be applied.
How it connects to the rest of the bid desk
The profile and the currency are read by most of the platform:
- Tender feed: you choose the countries and regions to watch, and opt in to multilateral notices from sources such as the World Bank and the UN.
- Bid Score: geography is part of project fit, measured against the active regions in your company profile, and the cost to bid is shown in the bid's reporting currency.
- BOQ pricing: rates in the bid currency, calibrated to the profile's market, citing the web pages the research used.
- RFQs and supplier quotes: suppliers quote in their own currency and the levelling matrix converts each offer it has an exchange rate for into the package currency.
- Deadline tracking: the closing date is held in the tender's time zone, starting from the profile's until the analysis reads the tender's own.
- Hunter, the bid agent: it can start a bid for you with a profile and a currency, or with your workspace defaults.
Its limits, and your control
A profile is context for drafting and pricing, not legal advice and not a compliance check. Each one is a short summary that can lag a change in the law, so the tender's own instructions to bidders and bid data sheet prevail, and the document generators are told to mirror the tender's returnable schedules, numbering and section order where it prescribes them. Bidligence does not promise that a bid meets any country's procurement rules; the evaluation is the procuring entity's.
The price references a profile names are where the pricing research is pointed, not data feeds Bidligence subscribes to. A rate built from web research cites the pages it used and carries a confidence level, and your won contracts and the rate library take precedence where they match a line and pass their confidence and sanity checks. The rates stay drafts for your estimator to review.
Exchange rates are for converting and comparing inside Bidligence. Where a tender sets its own rules for currencies of bid and payment, or for converting bids at evaluation, follow the tender. You stay in control: you change the bid currency and the bid's reporting currency on the Configure step, converting or relabelling a priced BOQ as above, and the profile the analysis starts from on the upload step.
Profiles and currencies work on every plan, including a free workspace, whose 500 welcome credits, once its e-mail is confirmed, cover a tender's analysis, its Bid Score and a priced BOQ. Generating the bid documents needs Starter or Pro, and RFQ packages and pipeline analytics are part of Pro and Enterprise. See pricing.
Questions
- Which procurement profiles are there?
- A global default based on World Bank and FIDIC practice, plus 21 regional profiles, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, India, Singapore, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines.
- My country has no profile of its own. Can I still use Bidligence?
- Yes. Nothing requires a regional profile. You can start the bid on the global profile, which is the default, and the analysis records the closest profile (the global one for a development-bank-funded or multi-country tender) along with the procurement framework, contract type and evaluation method the tender itself states. You can bid and report in any of the 100 currencies.
- Where do the exchange rates come from, and how fresh are they?
- From a public exchange-rate feed, refreshed once a day and stored against the US dollar; cross rates are worked out from the two dollar rates. A rate more than a day old is refreshed in the background when it is next used.
- What happens to a supplier quote in a currency that cannot be converted?
- It stays on file but is held back: its rates are left out of the levelling matrix and cannot be applied to your BOQ until you enter them in the package currency. It is never counted one-for-one.
- Can I bid in one currency and report in another?
- Yes. Each bid has a bid currency and a reporting currency. The BOQ shows the bid price with an approximate figure in the bid's reporting currency, and the dashboard totals pipeline and won value in your workspace's reporting currency, saying how many bids it had to leave out for want of a rate.
- Does choosing a profile make my bid compliant with that country's rules?
- No. A profile shapes how the tender is read, written and priced; it is not a compliance check. The tender's own instructions to bidders prevail, and the Submission Guard checks your package against the requirements read from the tender itself.