If you do not see commercial evaluation in your workspace, contact TruBuild support to request the feature for your organization.
Who this is for
| Role | Main responsibility in this workflow |
|---|---|
| Procurement manager | Confirms package setup, contractor list, and award evidence |
| Commercial lead | Owns the commercial round and the final commercial position |
| QS / cost consultant | Reviews BOQ extraction, anomalies, exclusions, and pricing clarifications |
| Owner reviewer | Reviews commercial evidence and residual commercial risk |
What you need
| Input | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bill of Quantities (BOQ) | .pdf, .xlsx, .xls | Required. The pricing basis every bid is compared against |
| Pre-Tender Estimate (PTE) | .pdf, .xlsx, .xls | Optional. Adds a benchmark row and deviation analysis |
| Vendor files | .xlsx, .xls, .pdf, .doc, .docx | Each contractor’s priced submission, uploaded against that contractor. Folders and ZIP archives are accepted |
Where commercial evaluation fits in the tender cycle
| Procurement stage | Commercial team activity in TruBuild |
|---|---|
| Tender preparation | Confirm package structure, assets, contractor list, and BOQ quality |
| Initial submission | Upload contractor priced submissions and run the first round |
| Compliance review | Check unpriced scope, exclusions, and abnormal spreads on the dashboard and scorecards |
| Clarification cycle | Raise commercial clarifications to contractors and track responses |
| Revised submission | Upload revised priced submissions and run a new round |
| Award recommendation | Use the latest reviewed commercial round as the commercial basis for the award |
Before TruBuild
The traditional commercial evaluation flow for a 6-bidder tender on a 1,000-line BOQ:Collect bids
Vendor Excel and PDF submissions arrive over email, each with different column orders, units, and formatting.
Build a master comparison sheet
A cost manager spends 3 to 5 days copy-pasting vendor prices into a master Excel next to the reference BOQ. Every vendor’s line order is different, so most of the time goes into lining things up.
Spot-check with formulas
Conditional formatting highlights cells above or below average. Formulas break every time someone inserts a row.
Manually identify outliers and queries
An analyst scrolls the sheet looking for suspicious numbers and types them into a separate clarification tracker.
Run a commercial evaluation
You run commercial evaluations per asset within a package. From the package’s commercial page, click Run New Round to open the evaluation wizard. From an asset’s results page you can also click Create and run evaluation. The wizard has two steps.Step 1: General information
Check the asset details
The Asset name and Number of instances fields are shown read-only. The instance count is the quantity of identical asset units and it multiplies rolled-up totals.
Upload the Bill of Quantities (BOQ)
Drop the BOQ into the Bill of Quantities (BOQ) upload zone. This is required. The label shows Complete once a file is attached.
Step 2: Vendor files
Upload each contractor's submission
The Vendor Files section lists every contractor on the package with its own upload zone. Drop each contractor’s priced submission against the correct contractor. Multi-file uploads, folders, and ZIP archives are supported.
Check coverage
The header shows how many vendors have files, for example Vendor Files (4/6 vendors). At least one vendor must have files to run the evaluation.
Round statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Setup | Round created, waiting to start |
| Analyzing | Extraction and comparison in progress. A progress view shows which vendor files are being extracted and the elapsed time |
| Ready | Results are available for review |
| Failed | The run hit an error. The error message is shown with a Retry option that takes you back to round creation |
Review the Pricing Overview
Once results are ready, the package-level Pricing Overview page gives you the comparative picture across all evaluated assets and contractors. A status banner at the top tells you where the package stands:| Banner | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Results ready for N asset(s) | Those assets have completed rounds, with links to each |
| Commercial analysis in progress | One or more assets are still processing |
| Commercial analysis failed | A run hit an error, with links to retry |
| No evaluations yet | No rounds have been run on this package |
Key metrics
Five cards summarize the commercial position:| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Lowest Bidder | The cheapest contractor and its total. Can carry an Inclusion percentage badge |
| Highest Bidder | The most expensive contractor and its total |
| Pre-Tender Estimate | Your PTE total and its variance versus the lowest bid (shown only if you uploaded a PTE) |
| Cost Spread | The gap between highest and lowest bids, with the variance percentage |
| Contractors | How many contractors and assets were evaluated |
Bidder ranking
The Bidder Ranking table lists every contractor with:- Rank: position by total cost
- Bidder: contractor name, with Lowest, Highest, or Unpriced badges
- Total Cost: the contractor’s evaluated total
- Score: 100% for the lowest bid, proportional for the rest
- vs. Lowest: percentage above the lowest bid (the lowest bid shows Baseline)
Bid quality scorecards
Two cards grade each vendor’s submission with a letter grade (A to F, labeled Excellent to Critical) and a 0 to 100 score bar. Use the arrows to page through vendors.| Scorecard | What it measures | Expandable detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Integrity | Whether the vendor priced divisions in line with the market | Overpriced divisions and Underpriced divisions, with counts and worst deviation per division |
| Submission Quality | How complete and clean the submission is | Exclusions and Unpriced items, with counts per item |
Charts
- Cost Distribution per Asset: a stacked bar per contractor showing what percentage each asset contributes to that contractor’s total bid. Useful for spotting a bidder who loaded one building or zone disproportionately.
- Deviation from PTE: per-asset bars showing how far each vendor sits above or below your estimate, with reference lines at 0% and plus or minus 5%. Shown only if you uploaded a PTE.
- Pricing behaviour: a breakdown of each vendor’s divisions into Underpriced, In Range, and Overpriced.
Work the line-by-line comparison
Open an asset from the Pricing Overview to reach the vendor comparison table. This is where evaluators spend most of their time, working from the largest variances and highest-value lines down.Table structure
The table follows the BOQ hierarchy:- Division headers with per-vendor totals and lowest/highest indicators
- Grouping sub-headers with subtotals
- Line items with item ID, description, quantity, unit, per-vendor pricing, PTE pricing (if provided), lowest, highest, and variance percentage
Controls
| Control | Options | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Price display | Rate / Amount | Switch between unit rates and extended amounts |
| Bid mode | Received / Normalized | View original submitted prices or prices after your overrides |
| Search and filter | Item ID, description, division, grouping | Jump straight to a scope area |
| Vendor selection | Checkbox per vendor | Focus the table on a shortlist |
Highlighting
- Lowest bidder cells are highlighted green, highest in red.
- Lines with variance above threshold are flagged amber or red depending on severity.
- Exclusions and unpriced items carry badges and feed the Submission Quality grade.
- Values TruBuild filled in rather than extracted directly appear dimmed and marked Imputed. Treat these as candidates for verification, not settled facts.
Overrides, notes, and source checks
On any line you can:- Edit an override (pencil icon) to correct a vendor amount or rename an item when extraction misread the source. Overrides feed the Normalized bid mode and are preserved on the round.
- Delete an override (trash icon) to revert to the extracted value.
- Add a note for other evaluators.
- Open the source document to check the vendor’s original page before overriding. Always verify against the source: the whole point of the audit trail is that every adjusted number traces back to evidence.
Export the comparison
Click Export Comparison in the toolbar on the asset’s commercial detail page. Before exporting you can choose:- Which vendors to include
- Rate or Amount price display
- Whether to include the PTE
- Received or Normalized bid mode
| Sheet | Contents |
|---|---|
| Comparison Summary | Project and round metadata, vendor totals, PTE total, lowest bidder, and variance metrics |
| Division sheets | The full hierarchical table per division: groupings, line items, per-vendor pricing, lowest, highest, and variance, with the same green/red/amber highlighting as on screen |
| Warnings/Issues | All detected warnings and anomalies, listed per item with the vendor and message |
<asset name>_Commercial_Comparison_<round name>.xlsx, so exports from different assets and rounds never get confused in the committee pack.
Viewers can export too, so a committee reviewer with read-only access can pull their own snapshot. Export before every committee session so reviewers work from a fixed file rather than a live screen.
Run additional rounds
Clarification responses and revised offers belong in new rounds, not edits to old ones. In construction procurement, the movement between rounds is often the evidence: what changed, why it changed, and whether a clarification improved or weakened the bid.Create the next round
Click Run New Round on the commercial page. Rounds default to “Round 1”, “Round 2”, and so on, but you can rename them. “Round 2 - post-clarifications” is a good convention.
Upload the revised submissions
Attach each contractor’s revised priced files in the wizard and run the evaluation as before.
Best practices
Insist on your Excel template in the RFP pack
Insist on your Excel template in the RFP pack
Every hour you invest forcing a clean, consistent BOQ template saves multiples in alignment fixing. Watch provisional sums, dayworks, and contingency lines in particular: vendors interpret them differently, and clean labels in your BOQ prevent most of the noise.
Sort by variance first, not by total
Sort by variance first, not by total
Big totals are not what wins or loses a tender; big deltas are. A line with high variance is where the market disagrees, and where your evaluator’s judgment matters most.
Resolve quality grades before trusting totals
Resolve quality grades before trusting totals
A bid with unresolved exclusions or unpriced items has an artificially low total. Use the Submission Quality detail to build the contractor’s clarification list, then re-evaluate in the next round.
Verify imputed and overridden values against source documents
Verify imputed and overridden values against source documents
Dimmed imputed values and manual overrides are the two places a comparison can drift from the actual bids. Open the source document link before you rely on either.
Never overwrite a prior round
Never overwrite a prior round
Keep each round intact. Committees and auditors care about the movement between rounds as much as the final numbers.
Related
Rounds and clarifications
How initial submissions, clarification cycles, and revised offers map to rounds.
Award readiness
Turn the latest reviewed commercial round into a committee-ready award record.
Technical evaluation
Score contractor technical submissions alongside the commercial comparison.
Evaluation governance
Access levels, audit trail, and controls across the evaluation.