The construction bidding process for general contractors: a 3-week checklist

The construction bidding process looks different from the general contractor's chair than it does in a textbook: it's three weeks of inviting, chasing and leveling subcontractor quotes. Every estimator has a version of this checklist in their head. Writing it down matters because the job you've bid nine times before is exactly the job where a step gets skipped. This one assumes a three-week hard-bid commercial project with subcontracted trades. Compress or stretch it; the order matters more than the dates.

Day 0 of the bidding process: documents arrive

1. Read the instructions to bidders first. Bid date, time, delivery method, bond requirements, mandatory site meeting, RFI deadline, sub-listing requirements. Every date goes in the calendar today.
2. Set up the project in whatever you track with: name, address, bid date and time with time zone, owner and consultant.
3. Do a fast scope read. Not a takeoff. Flip through the drawings and the spec table of contents and list the trades. Thirty minutes. You're looking for the unusual: a trade you don't normally carry, a proprietary system, a long-lead item.
4. Flag the long-lead trades. Curtain wall, elevators, structural steel, switchgear, custom millwork, anything with a specified manufacturer. These get invited first.

Days 1 to 2: invite the long-lead trades

1. Pull the trade list for each long-lead scope, filtered by cost code and region. If the list isn't coded, this is where you find out.
2. Send individual invitations. One person, one email, trade in the subject, due date, link to documents, and "let me know if you're bidding." Templates.
3. Book the site meeting if there is one and tell the long-lead subs now.

Days 3 to 5: invite everything else

1. Finish the scope list: every trade you need a price for, with a cost code and a target number of bidders. Four to six real bids on major trades usually means inviting eight to ten. The arithmetic.
2. Invite each scope, same rules. By hand, block a full morning and do it in one sitting.
3. Log every invitation as it goes out: person, company, scope, date. If your tool does this automatically, check that it did.
4. Write your own RFIs before the deadline. Subs will ask the same questions.

Days 6 to 8: first follow-up

1. Pull the non-responders per scope. Only people who haven't said yes, no or maybe.
2. Send a two-line follow-up. "Are you planning to bid the electrical on Riverview? Due the 16th at 2. One word is fine." Phone the trades you need. Cadence and wording.
3. Check the counts. A major scope with fewer than three "bidding" answers on day 8 is a problem you can still fix: widen the region, ask a trusted sub for a referral, or call the two firms you most want.
4. Attend the site meeting and note who from your list showed up. Anyone who came and hasn't replied is an easy call.

Days 9 to 14: addenda and RFIs

1. Send every addendum to every bidder still in play, individually, same subject line plus "Addendum 1," with a one-line summary of what changed for their trade where you can. Ask for confirmation. Why posting isn't notifying.
2. Include the "maybe" subs. They haven't said no.
3. Answer sub questions the same day.
4. Second follow-up to the silent, with different wording.

Days 15 to 19: the run-in

1. Confirm every "bidding" sub is still bidding. "Still good for Friday?" three or four days out.
2. Get scope clarifications in writing from the major trades before the number arrives: what's in, what's out.
3. Check your own bid form. Bond, addenda acknowledgment, sub listing, signatures. Fill in everything that doesn't depend on numbers.
4. Set up the leveling sheets. One per major scope, rows for expected inclusions and exclusions, a column per bidder. How to lay them out.

Day 20: bid day

1. Morning: chase stragglers by phone. Anyone marked "bidding" with no number by 10 AM.
2. Log numbers as they arrive with the time, inclusions and exclusions from the cover page, not just the total.
3. Level in real time. Plug gaps before comparing.
4. Two hours before closing, stop taking new scope. You need time to assemble.
5. Submit with margin. Fifteen minutes early for electronic, thirty for physical.

After closing: the ten minutes everyone skips

1. Update the tracking record. Who bid, who didn't, who said they would and didn't. Update "last invited" and "last bid" on every contact.
2. Note who to thank. The subs who bid competitively and didn't get the job are the ones you want next time.
3. Note who to drop. Three "bidding" answers followed by silence is information.
4. Write down what went wrong, honestly, for day 8 of the next one.

On tools

You can run this entire list with Outlook, a spreadsheet and a phone. The steps that hurt at scale are 9 (individual invitations), 12 and 19 (who hasn't responded), and 16 (the addendum to everyone still in). Those three are what invitation tools exist for. Invite All (our product) handles all three from your own mailbox with per-person response tracking. The checklist doesn't care what you use; it cares that every step happens, in order, every time.