Bid Tabulation Template

Why the lowest number is rarely the lowest bid

Every supplier and sub-tier quote is a price for a slightly different scope. One includes the curbs, one excludes freight, one wants a deposit, one ships in sixteen weeks instead of twelve. Compare the base bids and you are comparing four different things; award on the lowest and you buy the missing pieces afterward at whatever they cost that week. Bid leveling is the fix: list what the package must include, check each quote against it, price the gaps, and compare the totals that result.

GCs do this to your bids with dedicated software — which is why our construction bidding page is careful to say BuildWorkPro is not GC bid-leveling software. But every subcontractor who buys equipment packages, material quotes or sub-tier labor is leveling bids too, usually in their head. This template is the one-page version that survives the budget review.

How the template levels: Incl, Excl, plugs and quoted adds

Each scope row has one plug value and one cell per bidder. The cell takes one of three things:

• Incl — the item is in the bidder’s price. Nothing is added.
• Excl — the item is not in the price. The row’s plug value is added to that bidder’s total.
• A number — the bidder quoted an add or (deduct) for that item. The number is added.

Leveled total = base bid + the plugs for every Excl + the quoted adds. In Excel that is a SUMPRODUCT on the Excl cells and a SUM on the numeric ones, per bidder, with a conditional format that turns the lowest leveled total green. Rank, spread over the low bid and over / (under) budget follow from it. The PDF prints the same grid with a line for each; you do the arithmetic.

A worked example: four rooftop-unit quotes, $20,950 of hidden scope

The completed example is a mechanical subcontractor buying the packaged rooftop units for a medical office building — the $74,800 materials line on our estimate template’s example. Four suppliers quoted. Peak Mechanical Supply was low on base bid at $64,900; Mile High HVAC Supply was $66,300; Front Range Equipment Sales $68,400; Colorado Air Products $71,800.

The checklist told a different story. Peak excluded curbs, economizers, controllers, hail guards, freight, start-up and the five-year compressor warranty, could not meet the twelve-week ship date, and wanted a 50% deposit: $20,950 of plugs, for a leveled total of $85,850 — highest of the four. Mile High excluded curbs and hail guards ($5,450 in plugs) and quoted freight as a $1,190 add, leveling to $72,940. Front Range excluded controllers and the compressor warranty ($4,600), leveling to $73,000 — sixty dollars behind. Colorado Air included everything but start-up and leveled to $74,000. The award went to Mile High at $67,490 on the purchase order, with curbs and hail guards bought separately — $1,860 under the estimate, which is exactly the favorable variance that shows on the RTU line of our construction budget template.

Choosing plug values

A plug is only as good as its source. Use a real quote where you have one — the curb supplier’s price, the carrier’s freight rate, the crane company’s remobilization charge. Where you do not, price the item at what a rushed purchase would cost, not what a planned one would: the whole point of the plug is that this item was not planned. Non-price requirements get plugs too. A late ship date is a crane remobilization; a deposit demand is cash you would rather keep; a missing warranty is a service call you will pay for. Zero is a valid plug for a compliance item you simply want flagged — the Excl still shows in red, it just does not move the total.

After the tab: writing the award

The leveled total tells you who to buy from; it does not change what they quoted. The winning bidder’s exclusions are still excluded, so the purchase order or subcontract has to say what you are buying from them and what you are buying elsewhere, and any quoted adds you accepted have to appear as line items. Put the scope checklist in the PO. For sub-tier labor the same list becomes the scope exhibit of the subcontractor agreement, and the scope of work template is the long form when the package needs more than a checklist. Then file the tab with the job: when the budget review asks why you bought from the second-lowest base bid, this page is the answer.

Common leveling mistakes

• Awarding on base bid and discovering the exclusions on the invoice.
• Plugging low because you want a particular bidder to win.
• Treating silence as included — it is not until they say so in writing.
• Ignoring non-price terms: lead time, deposits, warranty, payment terms.
• Leveling three quotes for three different quantities without checking the takeoff first.
• Sharing competitors’ numbers with bidders, and teaching them to bid low and exclude.
• Not carrying the winner’s exclusions into the PO — the gap you plugged still has to be bought.

The winning number goes back into your estimate, and from there onto the bid proposal. For the full sequence from takeoff to submission, see how to create a construction bid.