Bid sheets are a great way to facilitate communication between suppliers and EMS companies about material pricing and availability. Bid sheets operate similarly to spreadsheets, except they can be more secure and less error prone. If you're a supplier and have been asked to submit a bid sheet to your customer, here are instructions on how you can do that within CalcuQuote's Bid Sheet Portal.
How to access your customer's bid request
You should have received an email from your customer or a no-reply CalcuQuote address asking you to submit a bid sheet. If so, the email should include a link to open a web view with the customer's bill of material.
Open the link using a Google Chrome browser
The first time a CalcuQuote customer sends a bidCQ link, you will be prompted to create a bidCQ account to manage all bid sheets sent to you.
Instructions to use BidCQ
Navigate on your Bid Summary
Once you have successfully create an account and logged in, you should see your account Summary:
On the summary page, you will be able to view all of your Open, In Progress and Closed bid sheets.
Use the Open and Close buttons in the left menu to toggle between bid sheets with different statuses.
Depending on the status view, use the toggle next to Customer Open (Closed) Bids to sort by Alphabetical, Bids or Lines.
Open your Customer's bid
Once you have clicked into a bid, you will be prompted with the Bid Information.
This will present the information for who requested the bid as well as the information for the bid itself.
To exit the Bid Information view, click the 'x' in the top right or click anywhere on the screen:
Here, you will be able to view the whole bid sheet.
Please note the important features in the top navigation bar:
Summary: Click here to return to your summary page to view all your Open and Closed Bids.
Bid Info: Click here to view an overview of the Bid Information.
Save as a Draft: this option allows you to save your progress to continue later.
Submit: Click here to Submit the bid back to your customer.
Please notice that after this action you won't be able to modify the provided information.
If you need to modify the information submitted, please reach out to your Customer to reopen the Bid.
Excel > Export: If you prefer, you can utilize the web spreadsheet or export it into a standard Excel spreadsheet format for ease of use. Note: you will need to import the bid sheet back into the web view in the same format.
Excel > Import: Click here to import the completed bid. After importing, it will auto populate the corresponding information.
Bid Mgmt > Expanded Bid: Turn on the Expanded Bid view to show all information for each Order Qty and MPN.
Populate your information
Populate the blank cells with the appropriate information. Some of the key cells you can fill out for your customers are:
Unit price = price for a single component in USD
Lead Time (Days) = time to deliver the product if insufficient quantity is currently available (e.g. if the required quantity is 500 units and there are only 400 available, what is the factory lead time to stock the remaining 100)
The Lead Time information is by default in days.
You can populate this information in weeks by changing the Lead Time UOM column to "Weeks".
You can set your default Lead Time UOM following the instructions HERE.
Min = the minimum order quantity required to be purchased.
Mult = the multiples by which an order must be place (e.g. if a component is sold in a reel of 4000 units and cannot be broken into smaller batches, then the mult would be 4000)
In Stock Qty = quantity currently available for sale
Suggest alternate parts/cross matches.
Note = any alphanumeric note you would like to leave for your customer in addition to the above mentioned fields.
There are additional cells that you can complete, in order to provide more details to your customers.
If you want to populate your information via Excel, click on the Excel option in the top navigation bar and Export.
The system will download the template file.
The excel file will be protected. Please make sure you unprotect it before populating your data.
Be sure to keep the template in the original format in order to import. If you delete, insert, hide or move any column or row, the import will fail.
Once you fill in your information, in the top navigation bar click on Excel > Import.
Select your excel file.
Submit you Bid
Once you are satisfied with the results, click on Submit.
Enter your name in the "Authorized By" field and a quote number if applicable.
After submitted your bid sheet, this bid will be marked as completed and moved to closed section of bid sheets.
If you need to continue your quotation later on, you can save your progress from the Save as a draft button in the top navigation bar.
If you want to submit only some lines and submit the rest in another moment, you can follow the steps to send a Partial Submission HERE
If you need any support, please reach out to us through the icon in the bottom right corner or send an email to support@calcuquote.com