Subcontractor trade bids
Levelling is not arithmetic. The numbers are on the front page of every bid; the work is finding the lines where a scope was handed to somebody else, and each bidder writes those differently.
What a row is
One submission for one package. Bids for different packages do not belong in the same table — a steel bid and a cladding bid are not comparable, and putting them in one table asserts that they are.
Addenda, clarification responses and revised pricing schedules belong in a bundle with the bid they change, most recent first. A revised exclusion list filed three days after the bid is the answer; the original is not.
The starting columns
This is the Construction preset:
| Column | Type | Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| Scope Exclusions | List | List the scope exclusions called out in this bid. |
| Hourly Rates | Text | What hourly labor rate(s) does this bid quote, by trade/classification? |
| Material Lead Times | Text | What lead times does this bid quote for key materials? |
| Crane/Rigging Inclusions | Yes/No | Does this bid include crane or rigging costs? |
| Drawings | Image list | Each drawing, elevation or detail diagram referenced by this bid. |
Note that Scope Exclusions is a list column. It is the most useful column on this table and the most expensive one — list and enumeration columns are charged at 2–3 credits per cell rather than 1. On a twelve-bid package that difference is under fifty pence, so take the list; on a two-hundred-row table it is worth knowing about.
Drawings is an image list column: instead of naming the drawings in prose it puts them in the row as pictures, each citing the page it came from. Bids reference drawings inconsistently — by title in one, by sheet number in another, and attached without either in a third — so a text column here produces four kinds of answer that cannot be compared. Pictures compare.
It surfaces drawings and cites them. It does not read them: no dimension, no area, no count comes out of that column, and nothing in this table is a quantity takeoff. What it saves is the part that is genuinely slow — finding which of twelve bids attached a detail at all.
What it looks like filled in
| Row | Documents | Scope exclusions | Hourly rate | Lead time | Crane included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meridian Steel bid.pdf | Fire protection; surveying; temporary works p.4 | £58/hr erector, £71/hr foreman p.6 | 14 weeks on primary sections p.7 | Yes p.3 | |
| Falcon Fabrication bid.pdfAddendum 1.pdf | Fire protection; grouting; crane; out-of-hours Add. 1, p.1 | £52/hr erector p.5 | 10 weeks, subject to mill confirmation p.6 | No Add. 1, p.1 | |
| Ashfield Erectors bid.pdf | Not stated | £49/hr erector p.2 | Not stated | Not stated |
Setting it up
- One workspace per project, one table per package. The workspace is what a table can see, so keeping a project together lets you build the next package’s table without uploading anything twice.
- Bundle each bid with its addenda and clarification responses before building the table.
- Create the table, take the Construction preset, and drop the columns the package does not need.
- Run two bids first — the most and least complete — and read every citation. A bid that answers nothing is easy to spot; a bid whose exclusions are buried in a schedule is not.
- Adjust the prompts to name the trades and materials you care about, then run the package.
Columns worth adding
- Bid sum as a number. Obvious, and worth having in the same table as the exclusions rather than in the spreadsheet next to it — the whole point is that the two are read together.
- Programme duration as a number in weeks, separately from lead times. A bidder quoting a ten-week lead time and a twenty-week programme is telling you two different things.
- Bid validity as a date. Levelling that takes six weeks and awards against a bid that expired in week four is a familiar way to lose the price.
- Prelims included as a category — full, partial, excluded, Not stated — rather than as prose, so the package can be counted.
- Qualifications as a list, kept apart from exclusions. A qualification changes the terms on which a scope is priced; an exclusion removes the scope. Collapsing them loses the distinction that decides who is actually cheapest.
What to check before relying on it
- Exclusions stated as inclusions. “Crane by others” and “crane excluded” mean the same thing and read differently. If the column keeps missing one form, put both phrasings in the prompt.
- Rates that are not comparable. One bid quotes an erector rate, another an all-trades average, a third a composite including supervision. The Yes/No and text columns will both report something; only the citation tells you what.
- Addenda not bundled. This is the same failure as an unbundled contract amendment, and it is the most common wrong answer on a levelling table. The exclusion list is exactly the thing addenda revise.
- Lead times conditioned on order dates. “10 weeks” and “10 weeks from receipt of approved drawings” are not the same commitment, and the second is the one you will be held to.
Roughly what it costs
Twelve bids averaging 40 pages is 480 pages — 480 credits, $4.80, once. Three typed columns across twelve rows is 36 credits, and the drawings column is a further 12 — an image column is charged like a typed one, however many pictures land in the cell. The scope exclusions list column is another 36 at the top of its band. About $5.64 for the package at par, and less with a bulk top-up. See how credits work.
The preset’s prompts are illustrative starting points, not a scope definition, and nothing here is commercial or contractual advice about your package. Ragextract reads what a document says; it does not measure drawings and does not do quantity takeoff.