Help CenterBouyout Packages let you send a selected group of project specs to vendors for pricing, collect their bids in one place, compare responses, and award individual line items.
A Buyout Package starts with the specs already in your Designer Pages project. You decide which specs to include, what additional pricing information bidders should provide, and any instructions or questions they need to answer.
Once the package is ready, you can add vendors as bidders and give each bidder access to their own bid through a shareable URL and password.
How do I create a Buyout Package?
From the Project page, select the specs you want to include. With the specs selected, click Create Buyout Package in the project toolbar.
Give the package a name and choose whether it should be Private.
You can also select the General Pricing Fields you want included in the bid:
- Freight
- Install
- Escalation
- Contingency
- Sales Tax
Add any Instructions for your bidders and create Custom Questions if there is additional information you want each vendor to provide.
Click Create Bid Package when you're ready.
Your new package will be available from the project's Buyout Packages section.
How do I add bidders?
Open the Bid Package and click + Bidder to add the vendors you want to receive pricing from.
You can select an existing vendor or create a new vendor if they aren't already in Designer Pages.
Each bidder is given a password and access to the package through a shareable URL. Send the vendor their URL and password so they can open and complete the bid without needing access to your Designer Pages project.
What can bidders submit?
When a bidder opens the package, they'll see the specs you've included along with your instructions and custom questions.
For each line item, bidders can provide pricing information including Unit List Price, Discount, Tariff, Unit Net Price, Lead Time, Notes, and Extended Price.
They can also complete the additional pricing fields you selected for the package, such as Freight, Install, Escalation, Contingency, and Sales Tax.
Supporting files can be included with the bid when additional information is needed, including documentation for proposed substitutions.
Bidders can Save Draft while they're working and return to complete the package later. When they're finished, they click Submit Final to send the completed bid back to you.
How do I compare bids?
Select the bidders you want to compare and their submitted pricing will appear side by side in the Line Items table.
For each spec, you can compare unit and extended pricing across vendors. The table also shows subtotals and the additional pricing fields included in the package, giving you a complete comparison of each proposal.
You don't have to compare every bidder at once. Select the vendors you want displayed and compare the bids that are relevant to your decision.
How do I award a Buyout Package?
You can award bids one line item at a time, so different products within the same package can be awarded to different vendors.
Select the preferred bid for each row, or use Select All when you want to award multiple items to the same bidder. You can also select multiple rows and use Award Selected Rows.
As you make your selections, the Award Progress at the top of the table keeps track of how many line items have been awarded.
This lets you build the final buyout from the best combination of submitted bids rather than requiring the entire package to go to a single vendor. If the entire package is awarded to one bidder, that bidder is identified as the Sole Winner.
Buyout Packages keep the bidding process connected to your project from beginning to end: select the specs, define what you need, invite bidders, collect their pricing, compare their responses, and award the work.