How to Find Out Who Won a Government Contract and What They Bid

Lake Alfred, Florida, received three bids for its S. Glencruiten Avenue traffic-calming project: $118,019.05, $133,560 and $234,827. Blacktop Dynasty was low, AAA Top Quality Asphalt was second, and Cobb Site Development was third. The city’s October 5, 2026 packet includes draft minutes recording the prices and September 24 award vote. Second place was $15,540.95 above first. The high bid was almost twice the low bid. The recorded vote approves the award to Blacktop Dynasty, LLC.

Save the second price along with the winner’s. It shows the nearest competition. Read the scope before using the high bid as a benchmark; none of those totals tells you what the contractor earned.

I would save the price list and award decision together. Bid Control by PorchRocket shows past winners and award amounts. After a loss, check whether the buyer accepted your bid for evaluation before deciding your price was the problem.

Where should I look first for government contract awards?

Start with the buying agency’s original solicitation number, then check its portal, purchasing results page and board records before requesting missing documents.

The buyer is the city, county, district or state agency signing the contract. A funding agency can be a different organization. If a school district hires your roofing company with grant money, search the district’s records first. Searching only the grant program’s name can send you miles away from the award.

Pull the solicitation number from your submission receipt or the cover of the packet. Record the title and opening date beside it. Names change between departments: a packet called “Facilities Exterior Improvements” might appear on the board agenda as “Building Envelope Repairs.” The number usually gives you a better match.

Use this order. Each stop answers a slightly different question.

Search order	Where to look	What to collect	What it does not prove by itself
1	Original bid portal listing	Opening results, tabulation, status messages	That the apparent low bidder received an award
2	Agency purchasing results archive	Reviewed tab, award notice, cancellation notice	That the contract has been signed
3	Council, commission or school board packet	Staff recommendation and attached bid tab	That the board approved the recommendation
4	Meeting action record or minutes	Motion, vote and approved amount	That all contract conditions were later met
5	Contract register or executed agreement	Contractor, accepted scope, term and amount	How much the agency eventually spent
6	Checkbook or payment transparency page	Payments associated with a vendor or contract	Original bid prices or every competing offer

I would give the online search a defined stopping point. Once you have checked the original posting and the next likely award meeting, send a narrow request for the missing record. Repeating the same search every evening adds nothing.

For a job you never bid, search the agency name with the street, facility or service. Add “bid tabulation,” “award” or “contract.” Then replace the broad description with the solicitation number once you find it. Our guide to finding government bids covers locating the original buying agency and posting.

Finding official bid results on a portal

Open the original project in the agency’s bidding system and look for published results or attachments, including records moved into closed or archived listings.

Reach the portal through the agency’s purchasing website. Confirm the agency name, then clear the open-bids filter. A closed project can disappear from that view while its original listing and award attachments remain in the archive.

Look through attachments as well as the page’s status. The tab may be a spreadsheet, a scanned opening sheet or a PDF added after the deadline. Save the entire file, including its footer. “Unofficial,” “as read” and “subject to review” are facts you need in your notes.

A status of “closed” tells you the submission window ended. It does not name a winner. A vendor list needs a label. Someone who downloaded the plans or attended the pre-bid walk may have decided against bidding, so count that firm as a submitted bidder only when the opening record shows it delivered an offer.

If the portal shows a result but no document, send purchasing a short locator request:

Subject: Location of published results for [solicitation number]

Hello [purchasing contact], I am looking for the published bid tabulation and award status for [number and project title], opened [date]. Could you send the public link or tell me which office holds those records? I have checked the original listing and its attachments. Thank you, [name].

Download results when you find them. Fairfax County’s bid-tabulation page says tabs appear at contract award and remain on that page for about 30 days. That county-specific posting window does not mean the underlying records are destroyed after 30 days.

Keep the source URL with your download. Add the document date and the date you retrieved it. A screenshot of a number without its column heading is a weak substitute for the original tab.

The award trail in council and board packets

Meeting packets can connect a solicitation to its recommended contractor and amount; minutes or an action record show what the governing body decided.

Search the agenda archive for the bid number, then try the project name. Open supporting attachments. A one-line agenda entry may point to a staff memo with the bidder count and a tab several pages deeper in the packet.

Travis County’s September 15, 2026 Commissioners Court packet shows how this works. The Cow Creek Road Slope Stabilization item, IFB 242-PH, recommends Dalrymple Gravel & Contracting Co. Inc. at $163,100. The supporting request on packet page 1118 says two bids were received and opened July 31, 2026. Work includes restoring embankments with mortared stone riprap and filter fabric.

The same memo identifies contract number 4400008922 and lists a bid-tab attachment. Search those identifiers to find the court’s action or executed agreement. This packet establishes the recommendation, so mark the award as pending confirmation.

Read verbs carefully:

• “Recommend award” describes staff’s proposed decision.
• “Authorize negotiations” leaves work before an agreement is reached.
• “Approve award” records a selection, subject to the stated conditions.
• “Execute agreement” concerns signing the contract.
• “Reject all bids” ends that round without a winner.

A consent agenda also needs follow-through. Look for the motion approving the consent items, then check whether this item was pulled for separate discussion. If the item was postponed, follow the later meeting instead of saving the original proposed amount as an award.

Lake Alfred’s October 5 packet contains September 24 draft minutes recording the award vote. The web page’s meeting date and the action date are different. Put the action date in your winners file and retain the packet date as a source reference.

For older records, ask the clerk for the specific agenda item and attachments. The clerk may hold the meeting record while purchasing holds the bid submissions. Name both records in your request rather than assuming one office has every page.

State transparency sites and contract registers

Texas’s Legislative Budget Board database and Florida’s FACTS help locate state contracts, while local city and district awards usually require the buyer’s own records.

The Texas Comptroller’s contract resources page links the Legislative Budget Board database. Its search fields include agency, vendor, fiscal year and contract value. Start with the agency and a wide date range. An award near the end of a fiscal year can be easy to miss if you search only the calendar year printed on the solicitation.

For Florida state work, the FACTS search guidance describes searches by agency or vendor, dates, contract ID and other fields. Search by the agency-assigned contract ID once you have it. A vendor’s name can return unrelated agreements across departments. Open the contract detail, then its Documents tab for the agreement and procurement attachments.

These state tools are the right stop for a state-agency agreement. I would not start there for a town’s janitorial bid or a school district’s RTU replacement. An empty state search says little about a local purchasing decision.

Contract registers can answer questions the bid tab cannot: when the agreement starts, whether options were exercised and which amendments changed the value. Open the attached agreement if available. Record the original amount separately from the current amended amount.

Payment sites answer another question. For example, a vendor paid $18,740 in one month might have received a progress payment or money under another agreement. Search by contract or purchase-order number before connecting that payment to the bid you are studying.

Keep payment entries when they answer a specific question, such as whether work under the contract has started. For a mowing renewal, I would spend the research time finding the contract term and renewal provisions.

If the contract register lists several suppliers, find the allocation rule. “Primary,” “secondary” and “as needed” can describe different rights to receive orders. A place on a supplier list is not proof that the vendor received the entire published ceiling.

How do I read a bid tabulation?

A bid tabulation compares submitted offers, but you must match the base scope, selected alternates and units before deciding which prices belong in one comparison.

Start at the top of the page. Confirm the solicitation number and opening date against your packet. Then look for a revision date. An agency-reviewed tab can differ from the opening sheet after arithmetic checks or eligibility review.

Read across one bidder’s column before reading down the ranking. This catches totals that combine different work. A paving tab can include separately priced parking areas beside the base project, with a deduct farther down the page for work the buyer can remove if funding runs short. Adding every figure gives the wrong total.

Tab entry	What it means	What to check before saving it
Base bid	Price for the defined base work	Whether all bidders used the same revised scope
Add alternate	Price to add a specified item or scope	Whether the agency accepted it
Deduct alternate	Reduction for a specified change	Whether the amount is already subtracted in the total
Unit price	Price per stated unit	Square yard, ton, linear foot, visit or hour
Extended amount	Quantity multiplied by unit price	Quantity used and any noted correction
Allowance	Amount included for a stated purpose	Whether it sits inside or outside the displayed total
Evaluated total	Amount used for the stated comparison	Which rows and alternates are included
Nonresponsive	Submission failed a requirement affecting acceptance	The recorded reason and whether this is a final finding
Awarded amount	Value of the selected offer or agreement	Term, accepted scope and any ceiling language

Here is a sample reading exercise, not an agency record. Say a six-person paving crew in Temple sees a $181,460 base bid, a $16,875 add alternate and a $7,420 deduct alternate. The award accepts the base and the add. The selected scope totals $198,335. Subtracting the unused deduct would give $190,915, which is the wrong comparison.

For a unit-price row, 730 square yards at $42.65 extends to $31,134.50. If the displayed extension differs, flag it. Read the packet’s rule for resolving arithmetic differences and look for a corrected tab. Retain the original. Any correction you enter in your own spreadsheet needs an explanation beside it.

“Responsive” concerns whether the offer meets the solicitation’s requirements. “Responsible” concerns the bidder’s ability and qualifications to perform. The guide to lowest responsive and responsible bidders covers those award rules. For research, your job is to preserve the buyer’s findings alongside the prices.

I would mark an unclear row “unresolved” and request the reviewed tab. Guessing which price counted is worse than leaving a blank. If your own bid was rejected, the nonresponsive-bid guide helps you identify which packet requirement needs attention before the next deadline.

Which dollar amount is the contract award?

Use the amount in the award decision or signed agreement, and record whether it covers one job, one year, several years or a spending ceiling.

A solicitation can leave a trail of different numbers without any of them being wrong. There may be an opening price, an evaluated total after selected alternates, a board authorization and a later contract amendment. They describe different stages or scopes.

Copy the label beside the figure. “Not to exceed” belongs in your notes, not just in the document you downloaded. So does “annual,” “initial term” or “including renewal options.” A bare dollar column invites bad comparisons six months later.

For illustration, a janitorial agreement might show $8,375 per month for a 12-month base term. That is $100,500 for the base year. Four additional 12-month options at the same rate would bring the possible five-year total to $502,500. Record the base term and options separately. The agency has not ordered five years of cleaning merely because the agreement permits renewals.

Now add optional floor stripping or emergency callouts. Those charges may sit outside the monthly amount, within a ceiling, or in a separate schedule. You need the accepted price pages to know which arrangement applies.

For construction, distinguish the contractor’s award from the project budget. The board may authorize money for engineering, inspection or contingency in the same item. Only attribute money to the contractor when the award record does.

When a press release and a contract differ, keep both figures with their labels and use the signed terms for contract research. If the agreement is unsigned, say so. A rounded announcement can help locate a project, but it is a poor source for a dollar-for-dollar comparison.

Bid Board’s past-winner and award-amount information gives you a starting point for this work. Bid Builder adds what past winners bid on jobs like yours. For the next step, use our guide to pricing a government bid from comparable records.

How many competitors are worth researching?

Research the submitted bids in your own market: in PorchRocket’s Bid Control data (October 2026), only 21.4% of 725 parsed bid tabulations recorded six or more bidders.

In that same set, 20.1% recorded one bidder, and 42.3% recorded two or fewer. The two-or-fewer figure includes the single-bidder group.

This sample is 61% Texas and covers only tabulations in our records. A spot check found a duplicate bidder row, so confirm close counts against the original tab.

My recommendation is to study repeated appearances within the same agency and trade. Start with the latest comparable solicitation, then work backward through earlier rounds if you need more context. A list of national contractors does little for a two-truck plumbing shop trying to understand the local school district’s maintenance purchases.

Count offers separately from responsive offers. Save withdrawn or rejected bids with their status instead of deleting them. Otherwise you will forget whether a thin award field began with few submissions or became thin during review.

One bidder also does not mean one automatic winner. The agency can decide the price or terms do not work and take another course. A two-bid tab is no guarantee of even odds next time; costs and qualifications differ between firms.

Let the bidder count guide how much research the file needs. Two submitted offers can be read side by side. A larger RFP field may call for a score summary before you request every proposal. Neither case requires guessing what competitors charged on private jobs.

Our article on how many bids it takes to win one separates bidder counts from your own results. In your winners file, the count should always carry a source and a definition: submitted, responsive or shortlisted.

When do bid prices become public?

Sealed-bid prices may be announced at opening, while RFP contents often remain protected during selection; the governing law and agency procedure determine when records become available.

An invitation for bids, often labeled IFB or ITB, typically leads you toward an opening record and a price comparison. A request for proposals, or RFP, leads you toward evaluation records as well. If the acronym is unclear, read our IFB, RFP and RFQ comparison before requesting the wrong document.

For Texas municipal purchases governed by Chapter 252, section 252.041 addresses public opening and reading of sealed bids. Section 252.049 protects trade secrets and confidential information and addresses keeping proposal contents from competing offerors during negotiations. That is why an opening announcement and access to an entire submission can follow different rules. See the Texas municipal purchasing statute.

Prices read aloud can precede a downloadable tab. The buyer may still be checking arithmetic, forms or qualifications. Ask when the reviewed tab will be posted and where the award notice will appear.

For an RFP, ask for the release procedure without pressing the buyer for a competitor’s live negotiating position. Save the date of the intended award notice when it arrives. That date may matter for review or challenge procedures stated in the solicitation.

Florida has a specific temporary exemption discussed below. It is a good reason to avoid broad claims that every sealed bid is fully public the moment the envelope opens.

If you need a number for tomorrow’s estimate, an unreleased current proposal is a poor research target. Find an earlier awarded job with similar scope. Keep the pending solicitation on your follow-up list and move on with the records that can be obtained now.

Read the buyer’s debrief or protest procedure immediately and calendar its deadline separately, because waiting for an answer to your records request does not establish that the agency has given you more time to challenge its decision.

Texas open records requests and the 10-business-day rule

Texas requires prompt release under Government Code Chapter 552; if production takes longer than 10 business days, the agency must certify that fact and provide a reasonable availability date and hour.

That is the distinction owners need. “Ten business days” is not permission to sit on a ready bid tab, and it is not a promise that every requested proposal will arrive by day ten. The attorney general’s Open Records Decision 664 explains the prompt-production duty and the written certification required by section 552.221(d).

Send the request through the buyer’s designated public-information channel. The Texas attorney general’s request instructions explain written requests and approved delivery methods. If the agency designates an email address or request portal, use it. A conversation with a project inspector is a poor way to establish receipt by the right office.

Ask for existing records. “Why did you pick that contractor?” calls for an explanation. “Please provide the award recommendation, evaluation summary and recorded decision” identifies documents that may answer the question. The agency does not have to create your research report.

A separate deadline concerns withholding. Under section 552.301, an agency seeking an attorney general decision generally must request it by the tenth business day after receiving the written request when there is no previous determination. Some redactions have separate authority. The production and ruling processes should not be confused. The current Texas Public Information Act contains those rules.

If the agency finds no responsive records, section 552.221(f) requires written notice by the tenth business day. Under subsection (g), an agency relying on a previous withholding determination must identify that determination in a written notice by the same deadline.

Save the acknowledgment and the agency’s promised response date. Count business days under the applicable rules; adding ten calendar days to the date on your email gives the wrong deadline.

If the response only says “processing,” ask for the status of the releasable tab and the expected production date. Attach the original acknowledgment. If the agency has requested a ruling, retain that notice and distinguish records already released from records still under review.

I would request the tab and award decision first for routine competitor research. A request for every email written during a year of purchasing can create a much bigger search without answering the immediate question any better.

Copy-ready public records request for a bid

Request the bid tabulation, award decision and accepted price schedule for one named solicitation, with electronic delivery and advance notice of charges.

Use this template for a Texas request. Replace every bracketed field before sending it through the agency’s designated channel.

Subject: Public Information Act request: [solicitation number], [project title]

To the Public Information Officer:

Under the Texas Public Information Act, Government Code Chapter 552, please provide existing records for [agency name], solicitation [number and title], opened on [date]:

1. The bid opening record and final or most recent bid tabulation, including bidder names, submitted prices and any recorded responsiveness findings.
2. The award recommendation and notice of award, plus the meeting action or other existing record of the award decision.
3. The selected contractor’s submitted price schedule and the accepted contract price schedule, including accepted alternates and unit prices.
4. The executed agreement showing the contractor, scope, term, renewal options and award amount, if an agreement has been executed.

Please send existing electronic files or direct public download links. Native spreadsheets are preferred where already available; PDFs are acceptable. I am requesting existing records and do not ask the agency to create a new analysis.

If any portion is withheld, please identify the applicable legal basis and release the portions that can be disclosed. If no award has been made or a requested record does not exist, please identify that status in your response.

Please provide an itemized estimate before work that would result in charges. I have not authorized paid retrieval or copying. Please confirm receipt and provide the request tracking number.

[Name] [Email or other preferred contact]

For Florida, replace the legal opening with “Under Chapter 119, Florida Statutes.” Elsewhere, use the state’s public-records law and the agency’s posted instructions. Federal FOIA terminology is often used casually, but the local buyer’s state law is the relevant starting point.

For an RFP, add a targeted sentence: “Please also provide the final evaluation matrix, my firm’s scores by criterion and releasable evaluator comments.” If you need the selected proposal’s technical approach, name that portion. Avoid making the entire competitor proposal your default request when the award and price pages will do.

For a canceled bid, replace “selected contractor” with the records you need, such as the cancellation notice and existing decision memo. A canceled purchase has no winning contract to retrieve.

Keep the sent request in the project folder. When the reply arrives, check it against the numbered list. A tab without an award decision is a partial research result; it may still answer the price question while you wait for the rest.

Florida records requests and temporary bid exemptions

Florida generally protects sealed competitive submissions until notice of an intended decision or 30 days after opening, whichever occurs first, under section 119.071(1)(b).

The rule covers bids, proposals and replies to competitive solicitations. If the agency rejects all submissions and simultaneously gives notice that it intends to reissue the solicitation, the exemption continues until notice of an intended decision on the reissue or withdrawal of that reissue. The limit is 12 months after the initial rejection notice. Read Florida’s competitive-solicitation exemption before treating day 30 as a universal release date.

Send the request to the city, county or district’s records custodian. Include the opening date and ask for the status of any intended decision. For a two-truck HVAC shop researching a county service contract, that short request is more focused than asking for all HVAC purchasing records.

Florida’s section 119.07 requires prompt acknowledgment and a good-faith response. Florida has no general ten-business-day response deadline under this section. Ask when the releasable material can be provided, and keep any explanation tied to the specific records requested.

A temporary exemption and a missing upload are different problems. If the buyer says the file is protected during selection, record the release trigger it cites. If the buyer says the tab exists but has not been posted, ask for an electronic copy through the records process.

Use a short follow-up rather than sending the whole request again:

Following up on request [number] for [solicitation]. Please confirm whether an intended decision has been posted and whether the bid tab and award record are now available. Please identify any records still withheld and the basis for withholding them.

Calendar the follow-up. I would study an earlier award while the current selection runs its course.

What does it cost to get bid tabs and proposals?

Public records can carry copying or retrieval charges, so request existing electronic files first and ask for an itemized estimate before authorizing paid work.

A one-page tab is a narrower request than years of purchasing emails. Start with the documents that answer your immediate question.

As of October 2026, these are the cost rules relevant to the two states covered here:

Request type	Texas	Florida
Standard paper copy	Attorney general schedule lists $0.10 per page	Generally up to $0.15 per one-sided standard copy unless another fee is prescribed
Electronic delivery	Ask for existing files and any applicable charges	Ask for existing files and any applicable charges
Larger retrieval effort	Allowable labor or other charges may apply	Extensive technology or staff work can carry a reasonable special-service charge
Estimate	Itemized estimate required when charges exceed $40	Ask for an estimate and explanation before authorizing work

The Texas attorney general’s handbook includes the copy-charge schedule. Its cost-estimate guidance explains the over-$40 requirement. Florida’s copy and extensive-service provisions appear in section 119.07(4).

For scale, 24 standard paper pages at $0.10 cost $2.40 for copies alone. That calculation excludes any other allowed charge. A searchable email archive requiring review can cost more even if its final output is one PDF.

If an estimate seems too high, narrow the request before approving it. Ask for the final tab and accepted price schedule first, with correspondence excluded. You can request a specific missing memo later. Certified copies are rarely necessary for routine market research.

Read the estimate’s response instructions. Under Texas section 552.2615(b), respond in writing within 10 business days after the itemized estimate is sent: accept the charges, modify the request, or notify the agency that you sent an overcharge complaint to the attorney general. Otherwise, the request is treated as withdrawn.

What can the buyer withhold from competitor bids?

Trade secrets and other legally protected information can remain confidential after award, but a bidder’s blanket confidentiality label does not itself settle what must be released.

Request the public portion of the submission. You usually need the offered scope and accepted price schedule to compare jobs. You do not need an employee’s personal information or every proprietary detail of a contractor’s operating method.

Texas Government Code sections 552.110 and 552.1101 address trade secrets and certain commercial or proprietary information. Section 552.0222 limits those exceptions for specified contracting information, including overall pricing and identified contract terms. Other exceptions can still apply. The Texas statute’s contracting-information provisions are the place to check the stated reason for withholding.

Read the released pages before requesting more. If they show the total but omit weekend coverage, ask for the accepted service schedule. If that schedule is withheld, ask for the legal basis and save the answer with the document.

For your own submission, read the packet’s confidentiality instructions before uploading. Identify material you believe qualifies for protection as instructed, and expect the public-records law to control the release decision. Marking every page confidential is a poor substitute for understanding what the buyer is allowed to disclose.

If you need to contest a withholding decision, use the applicable records-review process. Keep that issue separate from your dissatisfaction with the award. They involve different questions and potentially different deadlines.

Lost a government bid: what should I ask in a debrief?

Ask whether your bid was accepted for evaluation, what price or score the buyer used, and which recorded findings explain the selection.

I would get the tab before asking why I lost. If the problem was an unacknowledged addendum, a conversation about markup wastes everyone’s time. If the evaluated amount differs from your submitted total, resolve that difference first.

A debrief is a discussion about the evaluation. A public-records request obtains documents. You can ask for both, but do not assume the buyer offers a formal debrief or follows federal deadlines. Follow the solicitation’s procedure and ask promptly after the notice.

For a sealed bid, work through these questions:

1. Was our submission responsive, and were we found responsible?
2. What evaluated total was assigned to our bid?
3. Which alternates or quantities were used in that comparison?
4. Were any corrections, exclusions or qualification findings recorded?
5. Where can we obtain the final tab and award decision?

For an RFP, request your score by criterion and available evaluator comments. Have your submitted response open when discussing a weak score. “Was our proposed staffing insufficient for the required evening coverage?” gives the buyer something more precise to discuss than “How could they be better than us?”

Here is a debrief request you can adapt:

Subject: Request for post-award review, [solicitation number]

Thank you for reviewing our submission for [project]. Please let us know whether a debrief is available and the deadline or process for requesting one. We would like to understand our responsiveness findings, evaluated price or scores, and the requirements our response did not address well. Please also direct us to the final tabulation or evaluation summary and award notice.

During the discussion, take notes under the buyer’s criteria. Separate a written finding from advice offered in conversation. If a buyer points to a missing reference or an unclear schedule, record the page where your response addressed it, then decide what needs to change.

Finish with one assigned correction. The office manager might update the addendum checklist. The owner might prepare a more detailed staffing plan. Use the public bid-package checklist when the failure involved a missing return form.

If you believe the buyer departed from the published rules, read the protest procedure immediately and get qualified advice on that specific issue. A debrief invitation does not replace a filing deadline.

Build a winners file by agency and trade

Keep one row per solicitation in a winners file, with separate fields for submitted prices, award status and the source documents that support each entry.

A spreadsheet and orderly folders are enough to start. I would organize the records by agency, then trade or service. Your roofing history should not become mixed with the same agency’s custodial renewals just because both contracts involve the courthouse.

Use these columns as a template. Leave unknown information blank and give it a follow-up date.

Field	What to enter	Why it earns a place
Agency and department	Legal buyer and using department	Distinguishes similar jobs bought by different offices
Solicitation number and title	Exact number, plus recognizable project name	Connects the portal, agenda and contract
Trade and scope	Work type, location, quantities and service frequency	Lets you reject poor comparisons quickly
Opening and award dates	Separate dates with status	Prevents a pending recommendation looking final
Bidder count	Submitted count and responsive count if known	Preserves what the count measures
Winner or recommended vendor	Name exactly as recorded	Keeps a recommendation distinct from a confirmed award
Price fields	Base, evaluated and awarded amounts	Avoids overwriting one number with another
Term and options	Initial dates and renewal provisions	Shows when to watch for the next purchase
Source	File name, URL and page number	Lets another person verify your entry
Next action	Missing record, responsible person and follow-up date	Stops open questions disappearing into the folder

For Cow Creek, enter two submitted bids and $163,100 beside Dalrymple’s name. Set the status to “recommended” and the next action to “retrieve court action or signed contract.”

Use clear filenames such as Agency_IFB-number_opening-tab.pdf and Agency_IFB-number_award-decision.pdf. Retain revised documents alongside the originals. Keep the first tab if the buyer later corrects it, and add a note explaining which version you use.

When you did not bid, leave your own rank empty. When you lost on responsiveness, record that separately from a price loss. When the buyer canceled, record cancellation rather than inventing a winner from the low row.

Update the file when each result arrives. Assign missing records to a person with a follow-up date, so the estimator can see what remains unresolved before using the entry.

How Bid Control puts past awards to work on your next bid

Bid Board shows who won past public bids and for how much; Bid Builder adds comparable winning prices and guided paperwork for owners preparing their own submissions.

For an owner who already handles packets well and mainly needs better job and award research, I would start with Bid Board. If preparing the next submission is the bottleneck, choose Bid Builder.

Here is what you get for this work:

• Past winners and award amounts: Bid Board gives you a starting point for researching the agencies and jobs you want to pursue.
• Current work beside the history: Your board shows bids for your trade and area, with due dates, bid papers and addenda in one place.
• Similar-job prices in Bid Builder: See what past winners bid on work like yours, then check the differences in scope before you make the final call on your number.
• Forms filled from your company file: Bid Builder uses your Bid Passport, including your W-9, insurance certificate, licenses, references and other saved company information, to reduce repeated typing.
• Help when the packet stops you: Text a bid expert when a required form or instruction is unclear. Bid Builder also includes opening your first two bid-site accounts.

You can talk to Rafael about the jobs you want on a free 15-minute call. Bring a solicitation number or an award record you are trying to understand.

Use the last bid’s records to prepare the next packet with fewer unanswered questions.