What RFQs and supplier quotes do
Everything happens on the Quotes tab of a bid. From there your team can:
- Cut a package from the BOQ: earthworks, concrete supply, roofing, electrical, aggregates and haulage, or any set of bill categories you choose.
- Invite up to 30 suppliers per package, by e-mail from Bidligence or by copying each supplier's private link and sending it yourself.
- Collect quotes through a supplier portal that needs no sign-up, where each supplier prices the items, adds notes, exclusions, validity and lead time, and can revise the quote until the package is closed or awarded.
- Enter quotes that arrive by e-mail or PDF by hand, so every offer sits in the same comparison.
- Level the quotes line by line in the package currency, with the lowest and average rate per item, each supplier's total and how much of the package they priced.
- Apply the rates to your BOQ, lowest per item or all from one supplier, and see on each line where its rate came from.
How it works
From a priced bill to supplier rates in it, in order:
- 1Build the BOQ first. Packages are cut from the bid's bill, so the Quotes tab offers no new package until the bid has one. BOQ pricing builds it from the tender.
- 2Create a package. Give it a title, tick the bill categories to send, set a quotes-due date and write the scope and instructions to suppliers: delivery point, site conditions, standards, what to include or exclude, payment terms. Each item goes across with its reference, description, unit and quantity, and the package is priced in the bid's currency.
- 3Add suppliers. Company name, e-mail and, optionally, a contact person, several at a time. An address already on the package is skipped rather than invited twice. Leave E-mail invitations now ticked to send straight away, or untick it to send later.
- 4Send the invitations. This needs a confirmed e-mail address on your account. Bidligence e-mails each supplier your company name, the package title, the number of items, the tender's project name and the due date, with a button to open their link. Replies go to the team member who sent it. Or copy a supplier's link and pass it on yourself.
- 5Suppliers quote. They open the link, enter their rates and submit. The package creator gets a notification in the app, and an e-mail for each supplier's first quote, with replies going straight to that supplier. A revision sent within half an hour of the last one updates the quote quietly.
- 6Compare and decide. The levelling matrix fills as quotes arrive and refreshes itself every 30 seconds while you have it open.
- 7Apply. Push the chosen rates into the BOQ. The package moves to Awarded and, like a closed package, accepts no new or revised quotes unless you reopen it.
What your suppliers see, and what they do not
Each supplier's link opens a page showing your company's name, the package title, the tender's project name, client and country, your scope and instructions, the respond-by date and the package items with their references, descriptions, units and quantities. The page is kept out of search engines.
Suppliers never see your rates, your margin, the rest of your bill or another supplier's quote. The foot of the page tells them their rates are visible only to your bid team. On the page they can:
- enter a rate per item, leave blank any item they do not wish to quote, and enter 0 where an item is included in another rate;
- add a note on any line, such as "excludes cartage";
- quote in their own currency, chosen from 100;
- state how many days the quote is valid, the lead time, their exclusions and assumptions, and notes to your team;
- revise and resubmit until the package is closed or awarded or the link expires, with their last quote shown when they return;
- decline to quote, with an optional reason, and change their mind and quote while the package is open.
A quote needs a rate above zero on at least one item; a 0 counts as "included elsewhere", never as free. The page also tells suppliers that rates are read as excluding VAT or GST unless they say otherwise in their notes.
Quote levelling, line by line
A package opens on its supplier list, and below it the levelling matrix puts every supplier in a column against every package item, in the package currency:
| In the package view | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Rates per item | Each supplier's rate for each item. "incl." marks a 0 (included in another rate) and a dash marks an item with no rate to compare. Lines carrying a supplier note are starred, and the note shows on hover. |
| Lowest and average | The lowest rate for each item, highlighted when more than one supplier priced it, and the average of the offers. |
| Totals and coverage | Each supplier's package total and the share of items they priced, plus the total if every item took its lowest offer. |
| Other currencies | A quote in another currency is converted at the exchange rate Bidligence holds for that pair, and the supplier list shows the rate used. A quote with no exchange rate available is left out of the comparison, with its total shown in its own currency. |
| Terms | In the supplier list, under each supplier's name: validity, lead time and exclusions, and whether the team entered the quote by hand. |
| Status | In the supplier list: not invited yet, invited, opened the link, quoted or declined. A link counts as opened only when the page runs in a browser, so e-mail link scanners cannot mark it. |
| Declined suppliers | Their column is marked declined and left out of the lowest, the average and the totals. Any quote they sent earlier stays on file. |
Quotes that arrive by e-mail or PDF
Not every supplier will use the link. For a quote received by e-mail or as a PDF, use the enter-quote button on that supplier's row while the package is open, and type the rates as quoted, in the supplier's own currency, with validity, lead time and exclusions. The same rules apply as in the portal: blank for not priced, 0 only where the item is included in another rate. The quote then sits in the matrix beside the others and the supplier list notes that your team entered it. Saving it again replaces it, as it replaces any quote that supplier sent through their link.
From the matrix into your BOQ
Two kinds of button write the rates into the bill, each behind a confirmation. They appear once a supplier who has not declined has a quote that can be compared:
Each rate becomes the line's base rate, recorded as a supplier quote, and your bid's margin is applied on top as for any other base rate. The line's note names the supplier and the package, with the original currency and exchange rate when the quote was converted; applying again replaces that note rather than stacking a new one. Awarded items are marked in the matrix, and the package moves to Awarded, which locks quotes as closing does.
Bidligence refuses to apply a package if the bid's currency has changed since the package was created; you would need a new package in the new currency. Items deleted from the BOQ since then are skipped and counted. Once applied, the quoted lines from suppliers who did not decline are also added to your rate library as RFQ quotes where a line matches a library item in a convertible unit, so the next bid in that country can draw on them.
- Apply lowest per item: every item takes the cheapest offer, from whichever supplier made it. Declined suppliers, zero rates and quotes with no exchange rate are left out.
- Award all to a supplier: every item that supplier priced takes their rate, and items they did not price keep the rate they had.
Applying sets your bid's rates; it does not tell the suppliers anything. Award letters and subcontracts remain yours to issue.
How it fits the rest of the bid desk
RFQs sit between pricing and submission, and hand their results on:
- BOQ pricing gives you the bill a package is cut from, and the rates you apply from quotes carry through its totals.
- Bid exports write the priced bill out as an editable XLSX, with the rates you applied from quotes in it.
- The rate library keeps the quotes from an applied package as RFQ-quote evidence, so later estimates can use them. They leave your workspace only if you switch on anonymised rate sharing, and even then never with the supplier's name.
- The bid's activity log records when a package is created, invitations go out, a supplier quotes or declines, and rates are applied.
- Hunter, the bid agent, works through chat; RFQ packages are run on the bid's Quotes tab itself.
Its limits and your control
The matrix compares numbers; the decision is yours. The lowest total is not always the best offer, so read each supplier's exclusions, validity and lead time before you apply. A few rules to know:
- Pro and Enterprise only. Creating packages, adding suppliers and sending invitations need one of these plans. A workspace that moves below Pro can still read its packages, its suppliers can still quote through the links they hold, and the team can still enter and apply quotes; only new packages, suppliers and invitations stop.
- A confirmed e-mail address to e-mail invitations. Until you confirm yours, you can still add suppliers, with E-mail invitations now unticked, and copy their links by hand.
- Who can do what. Finance members, technical leads, bid managers and admins create packages, invite suppliers, enter quotes and apply them. Every member can read the matrix, but only those roles see the supplier links, because a link is all it takes to quote as that supplier.
- Links expire. A link works until 30 days after the quotes-due date you set on the package, or 180 days after the package was created when it has no due date. After that the supplier is asked to contact you instead.
- Closing locks quotes. A closed package refuses new and revised quotes; reopen it if you need more. Reopening an awarded package clears the awards, and rates already applied to the BOQ stay until you apply again.
- Deleting a package stops its links and removes its quotes, but the rates already applied to the BOQ stay.
- Exchange rates are Bidligence's, not your bank's. Check the converted figure before you rely on it, or enter that supplier's rates in your bid currency instead.
Which plans include it
RFQ packages and supplier quote comparison are part of Pro, with 10 team seats, and of Enterprise. Starter and Pro start with a 3-day free trial. A free workspace gets 500 welcome credits once its e-mail is confirmed, enough to analyse a tender, get its Bid Score and see its BOQ priced; generating the bid documents needs Starter or Pro. See pricing.
Starter
For the contractor bidding about once a month.
3-day free trial, then billed yearly. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing. One free trial per customer and card — a card that has had one is charged when you subscribe.
- 1,500 credits a month
- Full 7-step bid wizard
- Tender analysis and Bid Score
- All 12 Super Intelligent document generators
- Priced BOQ with market-rate lookup and sources
- Submission Guard checklist
- Mock Evaluator scoring
- Branded, editable DOCX and XLSX exports
- Evidence Vault with expiry flags
- Multi-currency and FX reporting
- Deadline e-mail reminders
- 1 user
- Top up any amount from US$50 — US$1 = 2 credits
Pro
For contractors bidding every month, with a team.
3-day free trial, then billed yearly. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing. One free trial per customer and card — a card that has had one is charged when you subscribe.
- 5,000 credits a month
- Everything in Starter
- 10 team seats with roles and comments
- RFQ packages and supplier quote comparison
- Pipeline analytics and win/loss debriefs
- Rate library across every bid you run
- 25 GB of document storage
- Priority support
Enterprise
For groups, JVs and multi-country bid teams.
Super Intelligence credits sized to your bid volume
- Everything in Pro
- A credit allowance sized to your bid volume
- 50+ seats across multiple workspaces for subsidiaries and JVs
- Full workspace data export whenever you want it
- Dedicated onboarding and bid-library migration
- Invoicing and purchase orders instead of card payment
- A written service-level agreement in your contract
How credits work
Every Super Intelligence action — tender analysis, the Bid Score, a priced BOQ, each of the 12 documents, the Submission Guard — costs credits in proportion to the work it actually does, so a bigger tender uses more and a small one less, and nothing is charged for a step that does not run. Your plan’s credits refresh each month and do not carry over; credits you buy on top never expire while your plan is active, and are only used once the month’s allowance is gone.
Top up any amount
US$1 = 2 credits · any whole amount from US$50 to US$10,000
Top-ups are available to workspaces on a plan, from Settings → Plan & billing.
Questions
- Do my suppliers need a Bidligence account?
- No. Each supplier gets a private link, by e-mail from Bidligence or from you, and quotes on the page it opens. They can revise their quote or decline until the package is closed or awarded.
- Can a supplier see my rates or another supplier's quote?
- No. The supplier page shows your company name, the project, your instructions and the package items with units and quantities, plus that supplier's own earlier quote. Your rates, your margin, the rest of the bill and other suppliers' quotes are never on it.
- Which plans include RFQs?
- Pro and Enterprise. Pro starts with a 3-day free trial. If a workspace moves below Pro, its existing packages stay readable, suppliers can still quote through their links and the team can still enter and apply quotes; new packages, suppliers and invitations stop.
- What if a supplier quotes in a different currency?
- Suppliers can quote in any of 100 currencies. Bidligence converts each quote into the package currency at the exchange rate it holds and shows the rate used. If no rate is available for that currency, the quote is left out of the comparison, with its total shown in its own currency; you can enter that supplier's rates in your bid currency instead.
- A subcontractor sent a PDF. Can I still compare it?
- Yes. Enter it by hand on that supplier's row, in their currency, with validity, lead time and exclusions. It joins the levelling matrix, and the supplier list notes that your team entered it.
- What does applying quotes to the BOQ change?
- Each chosen rate becomes the line's base rate, recorded as a supplier quote, with your bid margin applied on top and a note naming the supplier and package. It changes your bid only: suppliers are not notified, and the award to them is yours to make.