What a Vendor Sees and How They Submit a Proposal
The vendor side of an RFP, so you can talk a contractor through it when they call.
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Vendors do not need a Kore account. They receive an email with a private link, and everything happens on that page.
What they see
The page shows the job as described on the ticket, along with any documents attached to it, and a form to submit their proposal.
What they submit
- Proposal documents. They upload their quote, and anything else relevant such as a scope letter, insurance certificate, or schedule. Uploaded documents are listed back to them with the date, and they can remove one before submitting if they attached the wrong file.
- A price estimate. The headline number used for comparison.
- Notes. Anything they want your team to read alongside the number, for example exclusions or lead times.
When they submit, they get a plain confirmation that the proposal was submitted, and their card on your RFP tab updates.
Can they change a submitted proposal?
Treat a submission as final for practical purposes. If a vendor tells you they made a mistake, the honest route is to ask them to send the corrected quote and to note the correction on the ticket, so the comparison your board sees matches the documents on file.
Proposal expiry
A proposal can carry an expiry date. Once it has passed, the card shows the proposal as expired and it can no longer be voted on. This is a real protection: contractors price against material costs that move, and a board voting on a three month old number is voting on a fiction. If a proposal you need has expired, ask the vendor to re submit at a current price.
If a vendor declines
A vendor can decline rather than quote. That is a useful answer, and it is recorded, so the ticket shows you approached them. Three declines out of three invitations is worth noticing as a signal about the scope, the timing, or the rate.
Talking a vendor through it
- "I never got the email." Check the email address on their vendor record, then resend or give them the link directly from their card.
- "The link does not work." Confirm they are using their own link. Vendor links are individual, and a link forwarded from another contractor will not behave as they expect.
- "What am I pricing?" That is the ticket description doing too little work. Improve it, attach the documents, and tell every invited vendor, not just the one who asked.