Procurement
Once the returns are in, the client expects a tender report: what was assessed, how each tenderer fared on quality and on price, which returns were set aside and why, and who should get the contract. Fidrel builds that report from the evaluation itself. You weight the award criteria and mark each return, and the points, the ranking and the award decision come out on a report you print or save as PDF, with lines for the people who sign it.
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A report often begins as the QS’s spreadsheet, with comments in emails and scores retyped from a marking sheet. Months later, when a tenderer asks for a debrief or an auditor opens the file, nobody can say which figures the recommendation rested on.
On a tightly defined package price can fairly carry most of the weight; on a design-heavy one the methodology matters more. If the weighting is argued over after the sums are known, the quality marks look like a route to an answer already chosen.
The lowest sum is sometimes the one with exclusions, a missing rate or a qualified programme. Unless it is set aside openly, with its reason, it either wins on price alone or pulls every other price score down with it.
A quality criterion turns a mark out of 5 into points: its weighting times the mark, divided by 5, so a methodology criterion weighted 30 and marked 4 gives 24 points. Price works by proportion. The lowest sum among the compliant returns earns the full price weighting, and every other compliant return earns that weighting multiplied by the lowest sum and divided by its own; a return at double the lowest sum gets half the price points. Points are rounded to two decimals and added up. Compliant returns with a value against every criterion are ranked from the highest total down, equal totals sharing a place, and a return still missing a mark shows as Incomplete. The Use the standard set button fills in Price 60, Quality and methodology 25 and Programme and delivery 15, ready to rename and reweight for the package.
Procurement
Say a client weights Price 50, Methodology and resourcing 30 and Programme 20 for a mechanical package, and four returns come back. C is the lowest at €1,195,000, but it leaves out the commissioning, so it is excluded with that reason. That makes A, at €1,240,000, the lowest compliant sum: A takes all 50 price points, B at €1,310,000 gets 47.33 and D at €1,450,000 gets 42.76. On quality A is marked 3.5 for methodology and 3 for programme, B 4.5 and 4, and D 5 and 3.5. The totals come to 83 for A, 90.33 for B and 86.76 for D, so B ranks first, D second and A third, and C is not ranked. Had C been left in, its sum would have become the yardstick, and A would have dropped from 50 to 48.19 price points. The figures are illustrative, not from a real tender.
Step 1
Name each criterion, mark it as price or quality and give it a weighting. The weightings have to come to 100, and only one criterion can be price.
Step 2
After the deadline, type in each tender sum, and untick Compliant for any return you exclude, giving the reason in a sentence that stays with the evaluation.
Step 3
Mark every quality criterion from 0 to 5 in steps of a half, with a comment where a mark needs explaining. Price points, totals and the ranking follow as you type.
Step 4
Choose the successful tenderer, add the justification and confirm. Then open the tender evaluation report and print it, or save it as PDF, for the people who sign.
The tender evaluation report opens with the request’s title, reference and tender deadline and the date it was prepared. It lists the award criteria with their type, weighting and description, then every tenderer in the matrix in rank order: whether the return is compliant, the reason for any exclusion, the tender sum, the points per criterion and the total. The award follows, naming the successful tenderer with the date of the decision and the justification, and the page closes with two lines for signature, name in capitals and date. Tender sums are in the project’s currency, which is the euro for a project set up on the Irish site. The same evaluation downloads as a CSV file that opens in Excel, for anyone who wants to work on the figures.
A request for tender reaches the companies you invite by email or pick from your organisation’s supplier register, and each one uploads its return to a folder that only it and the client can see. Seal the request and nobody can open a return before the tender deadline, administrators included: the returns open by themselves when it passes, and the deadline can be pushed out but never brought forward. Questions from tenderers come to the client until the tender deadline. A response can go to the asker alone or be published to every tenderer without saying who asked, with the question reworded where it would give the asker away. A company that will not price can decline, and the client is told.
Public clients usually describe the tender they award as the most economically advantageous: the best balance of quality and price on criteria and weightings settled before anyone prices. Fidrel does the arithmetic of that balance the same way for every tenderer, but it does not lock the criteria when the returns open. They lock only once the contract is awarded, and removing a criterion, or turning it into price, deletes the marks already given against it. Settle them before the deadline. Withdraw award clears the decision and keeps the evaluation, so the criteria can be revisited and a new decision recorded.
Fidrel compares tenders in the client’s own project and follows no statutory procurement procedure. It works out the points and the rank and keeps the award decision on record inside the project. Nothing is advertised or published on a public portal: only the companies you invite see the request. Every tenderer has to create a Fidrel account from the invitation to see the documents and submit a tender. Fidrel sends no letters of regret or award and keeps no standstill period, so you write to the tenderers yourself. It runs no suitability assessment and manages no framework agreements or mini-competitions. Each return carries one tender sum, typed in by you, so priced bills are not compared line by line. The panel shares one score per tenderer and criterion; Fidrel keeps no separate marks for each evaluator.
Your trial applies to your first own project and starts when that project is created. No card required. Afterwards, choose card or invoice to continue.
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Read moreUsually the quantity surveyor or the design team, for the client or the employer’s representative; on a contractor’s side, the QS who let the subcontract package. Fidrel does not change who signs: it gives them one evaluation to sign.
Yes. Each request for tender has its own award criteria, so a design-led package can give quality more weight than a plain supply package. The weightings must still come to 100.
It stays in the matrix and in the report with your reason, but it is not ranked, it cannot be awarded, and its sum no longer counts as the lowest price for the others.
No. There is one shared mark per tenderer and criterion. Agree each mark as a panel and use the comment beside it to record the reasoning behind it.
No. The decision is saved in the project with the date and the name of whoever made it, and nothing is sent to the tenderers, so the letters go out from you as usual.
You can, as long as it is compliant and was submitted. Fidrel warns that you are not choosing the highest-ranked tender and asks you to justify the decision, and the justification is printed in the report.
