• An invitation email to submit a bid for a project is another company asking your company for a free bid.
• Your companies free bid will be one of many bids requested and received.
• You competition may include companies from outside your area, outside your state or even outside of the United States.
• Your company will be required to follow specific rules possibly including mandatory pre-bid meetings, engineering or other expenses be included with your free bid.
• Some bid processes requirea portion of the project be awared to companies holding government certifications.
• Some invitation to bid emails are for projects in the design development stage meaning your bid will only be used to create budgets and that your company has no chance of being awarded any work for your bid.
• In order to be awarded a project at some point you will more than likely have to complete a pre-qualification process that is an additional burden on your company.
• Some projects require your company to subscribe to a variety of web sites in order to become part of the project, ultimately costing your company money.
• Some projects require your company to be certified by a variety of companies in order to become part of the project, ultimately costing your company money.
• Most projects require your company fund the work your company performs with some projects stating your company will not get paid if their company does not get paid.
• At the end of most jobs the general contractor will hold between 3% & 5% retainage which takes several months to receive in most instances.
• When you commit to a contract the general contractor will include things your company cannot accurately calculate like escalation and tariffs in your contract.
• Simply put the definition of a payment and performance bond is the person that holds the bond is personally responsible for an open end loan. If the bond is enforced the insurance company will complete the job and the person responsible for the bond will be personally responsible for the total financial cost of that process. Posting a payment and performance bond typically requires collateral well in excess of the contract value. BMP recommends you consider all the ramifications of a payment and performance bond before committing.

Having the proper information will help your company make the best decisions on what projects to dedicate your bid resources too.