Review bids and read AI Scoring
Work the Bids tab as bids arrive, watch price validity, close bidding, then run AI Scoring for a ranked field, a recommendation with written reasoning, the Before you award checks, levelled comparable totals, and a full audit of how the score was built.
What you'll learn
- Navigate the request page tabs and the Bids tab columns, filters, and price-validity chips
- Close bidding, run AI Scoring, and read the commercial and questionnaire sub-scores
- Read the AI Recommendation panel: comparable totals, the Before you award checks, and the per-bid chips
- Drill into BoQ Line Items, Criteria Scores, and Questionnaire, and open the methodology and audit detail
When bids start arriving you have a choice: open each one in sequence and build your own comparison from scratch, or let AI Scoring do the ranking while you focus on the nuances the score cannot capture.
Most serious requests end up doing both. The Bids tab is your working surface for managing the field. AI Scoring is the objective ranking layer that tells you where to look first, tells you what must be checked before you award, and shows its working.
Why this matters
Without structured evaluation, the bid you award often defaults to the one you read last, or the supplier you already know. AI Scoring anchors the evaluation in the criteria you defined (your Bill of Quantities structure, Importance levels, and Questionnaire weights) and surfaces which bid delivers the best balance across all of them. It does not make the decision for you. It makes the decision easier to justify, and it refuses to compare two bids as equals when one of them left scope unpriced.
The request page
A published request has these tabs: Overview, Bids (with a count), AI Scoring, Invitations, Approval (when your team uses approval steps), Activity, Ratings (after award), Amendments (once you have amended), Q&A (with the count of unanswered questions), and, on a construction master, Documents. An RFI shows Responses instead of Bids and a Compare tab for its questionnaire answers; on RFQs and RFPs the comparison lives inside AI Scoring (below).
Before the deadline
While your request is live and bids are still open, you can already see bids as they arrive. Use this time to:
- Add to shortlist the bids you want to focus on. Shortlisting marks a bid for your attention without affecting scoring, and the Shortlisted filter narrows the list to them.
- Watch the Invitations tab. If the confirmed count is low, Invite suppliers or Find AI matches while bidding is still open.
- Answer questions on the Q&A tab. Every published answer reaches every bidder; see Run Q&A and announcements.
You cannot run AI Scoring while bidding is open: the Score Bids button is locked with the hint "Close the request to score bids. Bidding is still open." Scoring becomes available once the request is Closed or Evaluating. This is a hard rule, not a judgement call: it exists so a score always reflects the full field of bids rather than a partial one that new bids would immediately make stale.
Close Bidding ends the window early. The dialog, Close bidding early?, shows the current deadline and warns that suppliers who have not submitted will lose access to bid. It is reversible only through Reopen, which asks for a new submission deadline and an optional reason, notifies suppliers, and warns that existing scoring will become stale because new bids will need re-scoring.
The Bids tab
Read the table
Each row is one bid. The columns are Bid Ref, Name (the company, with a New tag and "New to VEXORS · Review bid on its own merits" for a supplier without a trust history), Trust (the Trust Score), Amount (the bid total, converted for comparison where currencies differ, with a note where rate-only lines are excluded or lump-sum sections are included, and how it sits against your estimate), Deadline (their delivery against your target), Done (fully submitted), Files (attachments), AI Scoring (blank until you score), and Actions: shortlist, the trophy to award, and the cross to reject.
Under each supplier's name sits the bid's price validity: Prices valid until (date), then Expires in N days as it nears, then Expired (date). The validity is counted per supplier from their own submission date, using the Quote Validity you set on the request. An expired bid can still be awarded, but the award dialog will tell you the bidder is no longer bound by those prices.
Filter with All, Shortlisted, Revision needed, Rejected, or Awarded, and sort by Amount (low to high), Amount (high to low), Score (high to low), or Most recent. On a very large field the table shows the highest-scoring bids first and says so; award and ranking decisions still reflect the full set.
Open a bid to read the detail
View full bid opens the bid's own page: KPIs (Bid Total, AI Score, BoQ Sections, Deadline, Supplier), then the Bill of Quantities section by section with the supplier's unit prices, line notes, approved-manufacturer choices, Attendance and Profit on PC sums, and any section priced as a Lump sum with its lines marked Included in section lump sum. Below that, the supplier's Questionnaire answers with each question's weight and any Show-stopper, their Extra Parameter Answers, their Terms & Conditions response (accepted, accepted with exceptions, or their own terms), Supplier Notes, attachments, and a Timeline. An Amendments tab shows which request version the bid answers ("Submitted against request v2 · current is v3").
Use the full bid to verify that a supplier priced everything you asked for and that their questionnaire answers are credible before you rely on their score.
Running AI Scoring
Open the AI Scoring tab and run
On the AI Scoring tab, the empty state states the cost ("20 credits per run") and how long a run usually takes. Score Bids runs on every submitted, eligible bid; bids that triggered a Show-stopper are excluded automatically and listed as disqualified. If your balance is below the cost, the panel says so with a Top up path. You can Cancel a run in progress.
Read the AI Recommendation panel
The panel at the top of a completed run is the decision surface. It names the recommended bid with its Total Score and Rank, then does two things a plain ranking does not:
- Comparable totals (levelled for scope gaps). Where a bid left competitive items unpriced, the panel adds an estimate for the missing scope so totals can be compared. Each line shows the as-bid figure, the estimate added, and the distance from the lowest. A bid that is cheapest as bid can stop being cheapest once its gaps are levelled.
- Before you award, N checks. One line per thing a careful buyer would verify first: a supplier who left items unpriced (its as-bid total is not comparable), who declined sections (partial scope by declaration), who accepted your terms with exceptions or submitted its own terms in place of yours, whose bid has cross-check contradictions between its answers, whose rates fall outside the pool's normal range (possible front-loading), whose bid answers an older amendment of the request, or who updated the bid after this run. When there is nothing to flag it says "No blocking findings: coverage, terms and rates all check out."
Each bid also carries chips that summarise the same facts at a glance: N/N items priced or N unpriced, Terms accepted, Terms: exceptions, Own payment terms, N sections declined, N unusual rates, N contradictions, Older amendment, and Stale: bid updated after scoring.
Read the scored field
Below the panel, every eligible bid is ranked from highest to lowest with its Total Score, its commercial score under BoQ / Commercial, its Questionnaire score, and the Final Score, with Strong (75 to 100), Adequate (50 to 74), and Weak (below 50) as the legend. The methodology line states the split you chose on the request: "Total Score = Commercial (60%) + Questionnaire (40%)", or Commercial only when there is no questionnaire.
Expand any bid for its strengths, concerns, and the recommendation reasoning where it applies. Concerns are not disqualifiers: they are starting points for negotiation or clarification.
Drill into the comparison
The Compare section inside the tab has three sub-views: BoQ Line Items (every line with each supplier's unit price and line total, best values highlighted, "not priced" and rate-flag markers shown, plus rows for Comparable total, scope coverage, terms response, and price validity), Criteria Scores (the weighted criteria and each bid's score on each), and Questionnaire (every question, its weight, and every supplier's answer, with show-stopper answers marked). Disqualified suppliers are shown in the comparison for transparency but never ranked. This is where the AI's evaluation is laid open against your weighted criteria; the recommendation and its reasoning come from the same data.
Open the methodology and audit detail
At the bottom of the run, Methodology & audit detail expands to show the weights exactly as configured on the request, the run metadata, and a Value TCO table: the cost-only lens next to the holistic Total Score, with a Confidence and a Reading per bid that tells you when the two views agree, when the cost-only view is far above the holistic one because non-cost factors pulled the score down, or when you should review a bid's findings before comparing on price alone.
The same drawer holds the Scoring disclosures: whether your own estimate was excluded from scoring on some lines because it differed greatly from market prices, or blended in; whether a single bid was scored against your estimate or flagged as having no price competition; how many provisional, PC, prelims, or daywork lines were excluded from competitive scoring but included in totals; and which sections were compared at section level because they were priced as one figure. Read the disclosures before you trust a close gap between two bids.
Re-score when needed
Re-scoring replaces the previous run and costs the same. Re-score when new bids arrived after a reopen, when a bid was revised after an amendment (the run shows Stale: bid updated after scoring on that bid and a re-score banner), or when you rejected a bid and want a clean ranking. If a run computes the ranking, prices, and compliance but the written analysis fails, you see Scores are ready, AI write-up unavailable; you are not charged for the missing narrative, and Re-run scoring gets the full write-up.
Show-stopper disqualification
If a supplier answered a Show-stopper question against your required answer, their bid is disqualified and excluded from the ranked list. The bid still appears in the Bids tab and in the comparison marked Disqualified, with the disqualifying answer shown, so you can see it; it does not receive a score or rank and cannot be awarded.
What suppliers see
Suppliers do not see AI Scoring results, ranks, scores, checks, or the recommendation, and they cannot see other suppliers' bids or terms responses. They see their own bid status (submitted, shortlisted, awarded, not selected), their own price validity on their bid page ("Your quoted prices are valid until (date)"), and any published Q&A. After the outcome they can run AI Bid Insights on their own bid, which never reveals your evaluation or the winner's identity.
What good looks like
- Run AI Scoring after the deadline, on the full field, and only once the bids you expect are in.
- Read the Before you award checks before the recommendation. An unpriced-scope or own-terms check on the recommended bid is the most important thing the run told you.
- Compare on Comparable totals, not on as-bid totals, whenever a check mentions unpriced items or declined sections.
- Open the disclosures before trusting a close gap, especially on a construction bill with lump-sum sections, PC sums, or a single bidder.
- Treat price validity as a real clock. A bid that will expire before you can decide is a bid you should ask the supplier to extend, or award before the date.
Next steps
- Award a contractChoose the winning bid, set the expected completion date, and confirm the award.
- Run Q&A and announcementsAnswer bidders' questions once, for everyone, before the deadline.
- Understand construction pricingWhy some lines are excluded from competitive scoring and how a section lump sum is compared.
- Add a QuestionnaireHow question weights and Show-stoppers shape the scoring input.
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