Procurement / Bid Portal
A public contractor bid portal plus the entity-side workflow behind it — vendors register once and bid online, staff post solicitations, review sealed bids, and award contracts on an auditable lifecycle.
Government buying has two sides. Contractors need a single, public place to find open solicitations, register their business, and submit a bid without paper or portals that change per agency. Procurement staff need to post a need, control who sees what and when, review the responses fairly, and produce a decision they can defend. This module joins both sides: a clean, standalone CiVQ Bids portal for vendors, and a staff console inside the dashboard for the office running the solicitation — sharing one record so a bid a contractor submits is the very bid a buyer reviews.
What you can do
Contractor accounts
Vendors self-register with their legal name, EIN, address, categories/NAICS, license, and insurance — once — then bid on any entity's open needs.
Open opportunities
A public listing of every posted solicitation across entities, filterable by category, with full detail: type, budget range, due date, and scope.
Submit online
Contractors attach documents and a cover proposal and submit before the deadline — one bid per need, withdrawable while the need stays open.
Create & publish needs
Staff draft a solicitation, set its budget and deadline, and publish it — which posts it publicly and emails matching contractors.
Evaluate sealed bids
Bid content stays sealed until the bid opening; then staff shortlist, mark non-responsive or disqualified (with a reason), and advance the evaluation.
Award the contract
Pick the winning bid; the system records the award and notifies every applicant, naming the awardee.
The contractor flow
- Register — create a business account on the CiVQ Bids portal (legal name, EIN, address, categories, license, insurance). The profile starts Pending review.
- Browse — search open opportunities and open a solicitation to read its full scope, budget range, and deadline.
- Apply — sign in, write a cover proposal, attach supporting documents, and submit a bid before the due date.
- Track — the account area splits bids into Active and History, each with a live status; a bid can be Withdrawn while its solicitation is still open.
The staff flow
- Create — draft a need with a title, solicitation number, bid type, categories, budget, and due date. It stays editable while a Draft.
- Publish — move the need to Posted; it appears on the public portal and matching contractors are emailed.
- Addendum — issue a clarification or change while the need is open; applicants are notified.
- Close — stop accepting bids; applicants are emailed that the window has ended.
- Evaluate — advance through bid opening, evaluation, recommendation, and intent-to-award; record per-bid decisions (shortlist / non-responsive / disqualified — the negatives require a reason).
- Award — select the winning bid; the need becomes Awarded and every applicant is notified with the awardee named.
The solicitation lifecycle
A need moves through a controlled set of statuses; contractors only ever see the open window (Posted / Addendum issued):
- Draft → Pending approval → Approved — the pre-publication stages where the solicitation is prepared and signed off.
- Posted / Addendum issued — the open window: the public can read it and contractors can bid.
- Closed → Bid opening → Under evaluation → Recommended → Intent to award — the review stages; sealed bid content unlocks at bid opening.
- Awarded → Award noticed → Closeout — the contract is awarded, the notice is issued, and the file is closed out.
- Cancelled / No award / All rejected / Rescinded / Re-solicited — the off-ramps when a solicitation doesn't end in a straightforward award.
The three email notifications
The portal keeps both sides informed automatically:
New opportunity
When a need is published, contractors whose categories match the solicitation are emailed so the right vendors see it.
Window closed
When a need is closed, everyone who submitted a bid is emailed that the solicitation is no longer accepting responses.
Award notice
When a need is awarded, every applicant is emailed the outcome — naming the awardee — so all bidders learn the result at once.
Sealed bids & fairness
For sealed solicitations, the bid content a contractor submits is withheld from staff until the bid opening — staff can see that a bid arrived and from whom, but not its proposal or pricing, until the lifecycle reaches the opening stage. That keeps the evaluation defensible: nobody sees the numbers early. Every negative decision (non-responsive, disqualified) requires a written reason, so the record explains itself.
Duties
Staff actions are gated by procurement duties, so a clerk who can post a need need not be the one who awards it:
- bids.need.create — draft and edit bid needs.
- bids.need.publish — publish a need and issue addenda.
- bids.need.close — close an open need.
- bids.application.review — view bids, record per-bid decisions, and advance the evaluation.
- bids.need.award — award the contract to a winning bid.
A closer look
A county posts an RFP for road resurfacing. A clerk with bids.need.create drafts it with a budget range and a three-week deadline; a buyer with bids.need.publish publishes it, and every contractor registered under the matching construction categories is emailed. Three firms register, sign in, and submit sealed bids with their pricing attached. After the deadline a reviewer with bids.application.review closes the need, opens the bids, marks one non-responsive (missing a required insurance certificate — with that reason recorded), and shortlists the other two. The procurement officer with bids.need.award awards the lowest responsive bid; all three firms are emailed the outcome naming the winner.
Contractors: the public
CiVQ Bids portal — /bids to browse, /bids/register to sign up, /bids/account for the profile and bid history.Staff:
/dashboard/bids — the list of needs, the create form, and the per-need review & award console.Works with
Purchasing & Procurement for the purchase orders an award turns into · Projects & Grants for the capital work a solicitation funds · Document Tracking for the bid files and award records.