Last edited 13 Oct 2020

Tender settlement meeting for construction

The tender settlement meeting is part of the pre-contract planning process, held just before the contractor submits their tender to the client. The estimate is converted to a tender for senior management to review and assess whether it complies with the client’s requirements as stated in the tender instructions.

Commercial and technical matters are checked to ensure that scheduling, pricing and sequencing are accurate, as well as sub-contractor arrangements and that the risk that will be incurred should they be awarded the contract has been properly considered. Decisions will often be made on the basis of how much the contractor needs the work, their level of confidence in their ability to provide the work as stated in the tender, and their level of comfort with any assumptions that may have been made in the estimate.

The meeting should have formal minutes taken which set down the decisions reached. As well as reviewing all aspects of the bid, there may be other decisions to be made before proceeding with submission to the client. The most common of these include:

If nothing is specified in the invitation to tender, what documents, if any, should be submitted with the tender? Some contractors prepare additional information such as a company profile brochure or tender stage construction programme that they hope will make their bid stand out from the others.
Has an alternative design or method been offered? If so, another price may need to be settled by the review panel.
Qualifications, which vary the requirements of the tender documents, are generally not permitted by clients. However, some circumstance may require them, so management must decide on a suitable approach and review whether any qualifications are likely to result in the tender being rejected.
Do the tender documents require a fully priced bill of quantities or is this only required if the tender is being seriously considered for acceptance?
Evaluation of the risks that may have been taken during the estimating process (were certain factors assumed or decisions taken on a basis of probability?).