Creating Tenders

A tender in Tendrex represents a single bid or proposal you are responding to. Each tender tracks the full lifecycle from identification through to outcome, containing questions, AI-generated answers, compliance items, and review status.

Creating a tender

1. Navigate to Tenders in the sidebar.
2. Click New Tender.
3. Optionally select a template to pre-populate sections, compliance items, and team assignments.
4. Fill in the required fields:
   • Name - a descriptive title, e.g. “Council Housing Maintenance 2026”
   • Organisation - the organisation issuing the tender
   • Deadline - the submission deadline (date and time)
5. Optionally add:
   • Description - notes or context about the tender
   • Reference - the buyer’s tender reference number
   • Contacts - key contacts for this bid
   • Portal Details - the submission portal (e.g. Contracts Finder, ProContract)
   • Estimated Value - the estimated contract value
   • Contract Duration - e.g. “3+1+1 years”
   • Lots - lot structure if multi-lot
   • Tags - for filtering and organisation
   • Project Team - internal team members working on this bid
6. Click Create.

Tender lifecycle

Each tender moves through the following statuses:

Status	Meaning
Identified	Tender has been found or logged but no decision made yet
Bid/No-Bid	Under evaluation - should we bid?
In Progress	Active - questions being answered, documents being prepared
Review	All answers drafted, undergoing final review
Submitted	Response submitted to the buyer
Awarded	Contract awarded to us
Lost	Contract awarded to someone else
No Bid	Decision made not to bid
Withdrawn	Buyer cancelled or we withdrew

IDENTIFIED → BID/NO-BID → IN PROGRESS → REVIEW → SUBMITTED → AWARDED / LOST
                 ↓
             NO BID (archived)

Bid decisions

At the Bid/No-Bid stage, you can record your decision with a rationale. This creates an audit trail of why your organisation chose to bid or not bid on each opportunity.

Submission tracking

When you submit a tender, you can record:

• Submission reference number from the portal
• Submission timestamp

This information is captured in the audit log for governance purposes.

Outcome recording

After submission, record the outcome:

• Awarded or Lost with notes
• Outcome details are logged for analysis and future bid strategy

Managing tenders

From the tender list you can:

• Open a tender to view questions and answers.
• Edit tender metadata (name, organisation, deadline, contacts, and all optional fields).
• Update status to move the tender through the lifecycle.
• Archive a completed tender to move it out of the active list.
• Delete a tender. This permanently removes the tender and all associated questions and answers.

Caution

Deleting a tender is permanent and removes all associated questions, answers, and audit history.

Tender templates

Templates let you capture the structure of a successful tender and reuse it:

1. Navigate to an existing tender and click Save as Template, or go to Templates and click New Template.
2. The template captures: section structure, compliance presets, and default team assignments.
3. When creating a new tender, select a template to pre-populate these settings.
4. Templates can be edited, deleted, and track how many times they have been used.

Tip

Create templates from your most successful tenders to standardise your approach and save setup time.

Compliance tracking

Each tender has a Compliance tab for managing compliance requirements:

• Categories: Legal, Financial, Insurance, Quality, Social Value, Sustainability, Health & Safety, Data Protection, and Other.
• Status tracking: Not Started, In Progress, Completed, At Risk.
• Due dates and expiry dates for each item.
• Evidence upload: Attach supporting documents to individual compliance items.
• Assignment: Assign compliance items to team members.
• UK compliance template: Apply a pre-built template covering common UK public sector requirements.

Exporting

When your tender is ready for submission, export it:

• DOCX: Export all answers to a formatted Word document.
• PDF: Export to a formatted PDF document.
• Pre-submit validation: Tendrex checks for unanswered questions, low-confidence answers, and incomplete compliance items before export.

Progress tracking

The tender detail page shows review progress - how many questions are approved, pending, rejected, or assigned. Tenders approaching their deadline are highlighted to help your team prioritise work.

Deadlines

Tendrex displays a countdown to the deadline on the tender dashboard. Use the deadline alongside the progress tracker to ensure your team stays on track.