2 Open the Contractors tab

Conor opens Orchard Lane from the Construction view and selects Contractors 1. The tab shows the stages from Coverage to Appointed, an empty tender table, Under coverage · 0 of 6, and the Recommended contractors, each with its reason, its risk flags and its Creditsafe rating with the date last checked.

3 Longlist the contractors, passing the red-flag warning

Conor presses Add 1 on Westbrook Construction, Marlow & Pike Build and Ridgeway Contracts, then finds Harcourt Build with Add contractor 2. Its red flag opens the warning: Late filing and Rating D or E, checked Wed 14 Oct. Conor types a Reason 3 and presses Continue with a reason 4: Harcourt Build joins the longlist marked “warning passed”, and the pass is written to the Site’s activity and the audit log.

4 Prepare the tender pack and the return date

Conor opens the Tender panel 1, presses Prepare pack 2, ticks the 6 Site documents 3 and sets the Return date 4 to Fri 6 Nov; for the site plan Conor confirms rev D as the current approved version 5 and presses Save 6. Tender 1 is preparing, each document linked to SharePoint; in the table, Harcourt Build carries its flags and the warning passed with Conor’s reason.

5 Draft, check and approve the invitations

Conor presses Send invitations 1 and ticks the four longlisted contractors 2; one draft each carries the pack and the return date. On Harcourt Build’s draft Conor picks the Key Contact 3, edits the text 4 and presses Approve 5 under Conor’s own name. The flags stand beside the recipient, the reason from step 3 is on the draft, and there is no opt-out line.

6 The invitations go; Tender Sent; coverage counted

System: the four approved invitations go from Conor’s own mailbox on Wed 28 Oct. Each contractor moves to Tender Sent with the date, Tender 1 is issued, and coverage counts from Tender Sent: Under coverage · 4 of 6, here and on the Construction view row. Each invitation is in the Site’s activity.

7 Record each returned bid

Marlow & Pike Build’s bid arrives on Fri 6 Nov and is logged on the Site. Conor presses Record bid 1, enters the Base price 2, the itemised abnormals 3, the fee %, overage and CSA 4, picks the Employer’s Requirements version 5, attaches the quote with Upload quote 6 and presses Save 7: the contractor is at Bids Returned with bid version 1. With every invited contractor returned, the Tender becomes bids returned.

8 The quote is read into headings, matched and flagged

System: Marlow & Pike Build’s quote is read into the 8 NRM headings, base price and abnormals apart, each line with its confidence and place in the file; it is matched to the benchmark, compared with the benchmark, BCIS and an earlier quote, and checked against Calder Valley Homes’s ER rev C. The bid shows “Read, waiting for review” with 3 flags; Harcourt Build’s quote still shows the loader.

9 Review the reading and save the comparison

On Mon 9 Nov Conor opens the bid and presses Review reading 1. Beside the source file Conor corrects Services 2, read as £1,306,000, moves Temporary site welfare with Move to heading 3, uses Change match 4 on the kitchens and adds a Note 5 to the fittings line. With no gap to the source total, Conor presses Confirm reading 6 and Save comparison 7: the quote is reviewed and its comparison reaches the bid.

10 Grade the bid and complete the Tender Pro Forma

Conor sees the suggested grade Good, 99.7% of the £8,000,000 build budget, and chooses the Grade 1: Good; the contractor moves to Priced. Conor opens the Tender Pro Forma 2, pre-filled from the record, types the Strengths 3, Risks 4 and Recommendation 5, and presses Save 6.

11 Compare the bids side by side

Conor presses Compare bids 1, then By NRM heading 2. Every current bid stands in one view: base price ranked, the abnormals line by line, £/sqft, fee % of build, CSA, the Employer’s Requirements version and the grade; by heading, the high and missing lines are marked against the benchmark and BCIS.

12 Choose the preferred contractor and confirm the agreed build cost

On Thu 12 Nov Conor presses Choose as preferred 1 on Marlow & Pike Build’s bid, reads the agreed build cost of £7,975,000 from its reviewed comparison and presses Confirm 2. Below: Marlow & Pike Build at Preferred, Tender 1 closed with “preferred chosen”, Orchard Lane at Acceptable Build and, as the landowner accepted the offer review on Wed 4 Nov, on to Under Offer by the queued move; Land and Partnerships notified, and the price on its way to Heads of Terms and the appraisal.

13 Alternative: stop at the warning, or check again first

Alternative: at step 3 Conor presses Cancel 1 and Harcourt Build is not added, or Run check 2, and Creditsafe refreshes its figures and flags. Here Creditsafe is unavailable: the figures of Wed 14 Oct stay and no flag is cleared, so only Continue with a reason 3 adds it. A contractor never checked shows “not checked”; one on the Removed list is never offered.

14 Alternative: a red flag on a contractor already invited

Alternative, system: on Tue 3 Nov a scheduled Creditsafe refresh moves Ridgeway Contracts from B to D. Conor, as the Construction owner, is notified with the flag and the Site, and Rating D or E stands on the contractor’s row at Tender Sent.

15 Alternative: a bid far off the benchmark

Alternative: in Harcourt Build’s review, substructure and external works are well above the benchmark and fittings are not priced. Conor adds a Note 1 to the lines, records a Decision 2 with its reason and presses Reject bid 3: the bid stays on record, marked rejected, and leaves the rank.

16 Alternative: the quote cannot be read

Alternative: for Harcourt Build’s scanned PDF no lines are proposed, so Conor types them into the review grid 1 with the source still beside it. If the reading fails or times out, the quote stays uploaded with the failure shown, and Read again 2 runs it again.

17 Alternative: the 21 days pass without an acceptable bid

Alternative, system: on Tue 17 Nov, the day after the bid clock ended, the stall rule “tender overdue” fires. The countdown turns red here and on the Construction view, the Site carries the stalled badge with the rule and its 21-day threshold, a system entry goes to its activity, and Conor and Rhys Calloway get the stall alert once.

18 Alternative: no bid came back, or none is acceptable

Alternative: with no bid graded Acceptable, Conor presses No acceptable bid 1: a Primary action and a notification go to Dana Whitfield and Jamie Morgan, proposing to close the Site with the Reason Dead “No acceptable bid”. Or New tender round 2 closes Tender 1 as re-tendered, its pack, invitations and bids kept, and opens Tender 2 at preparing.

19 Alternative: the chosen bid is below Acceptable

Alternative: when the chosen bid is below Acceptable, here Harcourt Build at Unviable, the choice is refused until a partner approves a named exception. Conor types a Reason 1 and presses Request exception 2; below, the request waits in Rhys Calloway’s decisions on the Executive dashboard.

20 Alternative: the duplicate-send guard

Alternative: Conor ticks Westbrook Construction again 1 on the same Tender. The send is blocked with the earlier invitation’s date, Wed 28 Oct; only a Partner / MD override with a Reason 2 releases it, which Conor asks for 3.

21 Alternative: the preferred contractor revises its bid

Alternative: on Mon 16 Nov Marlow & Pike Build sends a revised bid, £7,915,000 in all, recorded as version 2 while version 1 is marked superseded. Version 2 becomes preferred only once Conor re-grades it 1 and presses Re-confirm build cost 2, which records a commercial decision with the old and new figures.