How to respond to a tender

How to respond to a government tender in Australia: read the request, check the hard gates, answer each criterion with evidence, complete the returnables, and lodge on time.

1. Read the whole request and the addenda

Start with the document the buyer is actually running. For a Commonwealth approach to market that is the request for tender and its attachments on AusTender. For a state or council buyer it is the request, the specification and the returnable schedules they issued. Read the whole set before you draft a sentence. A response written from the advertisement, or from the first ten pages, answers a tender the buyer did not issue.

Note the closing time, the time zone, and the portal. Note how questions are asked, and the deadline for those questions. Note whether the buyer will issue addenda, and where they will appear. An addendum is part of the request. A revised clause, a new drawing or a published answer can change a mandatory file, a page limit or a date.

Keep a list of every document and every addendum you have opened, with its date. When a later addendum arrives, read it against that list. Do not assume it only fixes a typo. Teams lose compliant status because version two of a schedule replaced version one and the response still used version one.

If the request is long, the first pass is still a full pass. You are looking for instructions that govern the rest: lodging rules, file formats, naming rules, mandatory forms, and any statement that a late response will not be accepted. Those rules are not background. They decide whether the writing is read at all.

2. Check the hard gates

Hard gates are the conditions the buyer says will exclude a response. They sit under names such as conditions for participation, mandatory criteria, or minimum requirements. Read them as yes-or-no tests. A strong method does not cure a missing mandatory condition.

Typical gates concern licences, registrations, insurance levels, financial capacity, work health and safety arrangements, and a minimum number of similar projects. The list is the buyer's list, not a standard set. Quote the condition as it is written, then check it against a document your firm already holds. If you do not hold it, do not write a sentence that implies you do.

Some gates are about the entity that bids. The legal name on the response has to be the legal name that can contract, hold the licence, and lodge on the portal. A trading name, a related company or a subcontractor's credential cannot be quietly substituted because it looks stronger.

Do this check before the writing, not the night before close. If a gate fails, the honest outcome is not to bid, or to bid only if the request allows a structure you truly have, such as a disclosed consortium. Guessing that the buyer will waive a mandatory condition is not a plan.

3. Map every criterion and weighting

Build a table before you write prose. One row per criterion the buyer will score. Columns for the criterion in the buyer's words, the weighting if one is published, the page or word limit, the evidence you will use, and the returnable schedule it also has to appear on. If the buyer did not publish a weighting, leave that cell blank. Do not invent one.

Check that every scored question has a row. Evaluation teams work from their criteria, not from the story you would prefer to tell. A point that matters to you, and that no criterion asks for, does not earn the points attached to a criterion you left thin.

Map the attachments the same way. A criterion that says 'provide the plan in Attachment C' is failed by a plan that lives only in the narrative. The map should show where each answer will sit, so the draft and the schedules cannot drift apart.

Share the map with the people who have to supply facts. A criterion about past work needs a person who did the work. A criterion about capacity needs a person who can say what is free. The map is also how you see, early, which answers you cannot support.

4. Answer with evidence, not adjectives

Each criterion answer should make a claim and then show the fact that supports it. The fact is a project, a date, a role, a method you use, or a result you can describe from your own records. 'Extensive experience' and 'committed to quality' are not facts. Buyers read those phrases in almost every response, and they do not distinguish a firm.

Use the buyer's words for the thing they asked about, then use your words for the work. If they ask how you will manage a defect, describe the steps your firm takes, who does them, and what record you keep. Do not answer with a restatement of the question and a promise to comply.

Stay inside the limit. A page limit is an instruction. An answer that runs over can be set aside, or the extra pages can be unread. Edit for the criterion, not for atmosphere. If a fact does not help that criterion, take it out.

Do not upgrade the evidence. If the similar project was smaller, say what it was. If a staff member has not been named because they are not committed to this job, do not name them. A response that an evaluator cannot trust on a checkable detail is a response they can doubt everywhere else.

Where a subcontractor is part of the offer, say so, and only to the extent the request allows. Their experience is not yours unless the request lets you rely on it and they have agreed to be part of this response.

5. Complete the returnable schedules

Returnable schedules are the forms, spreadsheets and declarations the buyer listed. They are not optional annexes. A common exclusion is a missing schedule, a schedule left in the buyer's blank template, or a schedule completed for a different tender and uploaded under this tender's name.

Complete each one from the map. Use the file name the buyer specified. If they specified a format, use that format. A PDF of a spreadsheet they asked to receive as a spreadsheet can fail a check that never reaches the writing.

Declarations, conflict statements, confidentiality deeds and modern-slavery or labour questions have to be answered by someone who is allowed to bind the firm. TenderLodge can point at the clause. Your authorised person signs it. We do not sign for you.

Cross-check the schedules against the narrative. The project named in the criterion answer has to be the project named in the schedule. The price in the pricing schedule has to be the price you are willing to contract. Inconsistencies are easy for an evaluator to find, and they are a reason to lose confidence in the rest.

6. Price it yourself

The price is a commercial offer. It belongs to your firm. TenderLodge will lay the pricing schedule out in the buyer's format and will leave it for you to complete. We do not invent rates, margins, discounts or a total, and we do not copy a rate from another job because the line looks similar.

Price the thing the specification describes, including the items an addendum added or removed. A price for the original scope, after the buyer has changed the scope, is a price for the wrong job. Check inclusions, exclusions and the basis of measurement against the request, not against your usual quote.

If the request has a price form and a separate written pricing assumption, they have to agree. If the portal has its own price fields as well as an attachment, both have to agree. Evaluators and portal checks both notice a mismatch.

Build time for the pricing into the plan. It is not a last box to tick after the writing is 'done'. A response that is well written and wrongly priced is still the offer you lodged.

7. Check, then lodge before close

The check is a second pass against the map, not a skim for tone. Every criterion has an answer. Every mandatory schedule is filled. Every addendum is reflected. Names, dates and totals match. File names match the buyer's rule. The lodgement account is the firm's own account, and the person lodging can get in.

Lodge early enough that a portal error is survivable. Buyers are not obliged to extend a closing time because an upload failed in the last minutes. Keep the receipt the portal issues. If the portal shows a submission number, a timestamp or a confirmation email, save it outside the portal as well.

You lodge. That is the step TenderLodge does not take. We do not ask for the password, we do not sit in the account with you, and we do not press the final control. The bidder on the receipt has to be your firm, because your firm is the bidder.

After lodgement, watch for a late addendum only if the buyer's rules say what a late addendum does to responses already lodged. Do not assume you can swap files after the closing time. If the request forbids it, it is forbidden.

Common reasons responses are excluded

Late lodgement, including a file that finished uploading after the closing time. The portal timestamp is the one that counts, not the time you started.

A missing mandatory schedule, an unsigned declaration, or a response lodged by an entity that does not meet a condition for participation. These are rejected before the writing is compared with anyone else's.

An answer that does not address the criterion, a price that contradicts the pricing schedule, or reliance on a licence, a person or a project the firm cannot produce if the buyer asks. Evaluators do check.

Ignoring an addendum. The buyer is evaluating the tender as amended. A response to the original, unamended request is a response to a document that is no longer current.

None of these are repaired by a more polished introduction. The exclusion happens because a rule was missed. The map, the hard-gate check and an early lodge are how you avoid them.

Get help with the writing

You can run this sequence yourself. Many firms do. If you want TenderLodge to write the response, the split stays the same as this guide: we read the request, check the fit, write the criteria responses and the returnables, and prepare the lodge pack. You price it, you approve it, and you lodge it.

There's no fee unless you win. The success fee follows the awarded value, on the schedule published on the fees page, and only after a confirmed award. If you do not win, you pay no success fee for that tender.

Send the tender while it is still open. The fit check has to happen before the writing, and the writing has to finish while you still have time to review and lodge. The enquiry page is the place to start.