Koevert Tenderkantoor

Most bids are lost before anyone reads them

Koevert writes, checks and packs tender submissions for contractors and suppliers in Bloemfontein and across the Free State. We work down the returnable schedule before anybody looks at the price.

Have your bid checked

Why does a good price still get disqualified?

Because the first envelope is opened by a compliance officer, not an engineer. Before anyone reads what you charge, someone works down the returnable schedule with a pen and ticks whether every form is there, signed, dated and initialled on every page. A missing initial is not a small thing at that table. It is a reason to stop reading.

We have sat through openings in Bloemfontein, Kimberley and Welkom and watched it happen. Twenty minutes for a box of submissions, and roughly half of them are out before a single price is read aloud. Nothing in those twenty minutes has anything to do with whether you can do the work.

Ten minutes on the compliance table

What the evaluators open first, and in what order

Where bids actually get thrown out

Eight reasons we see over and over on Free State and Northern Cape tenders. Not one of them is about whether you can do the work.

Unsigned pages

The declaration of interest goes in unsigned, or one page of four is initialled and the other three are not. Nobody catches that at your end.

The closing minute

Delivered at 11:04 for an 11:00 close. The box is sealed on the minute and the clerk at the counter has no power to open it again for you.

Tax compliance status

The PIN was live when you printed it and had expired by the close. Evaluators pull a fresh status from SARS on the day they check, not the day you applied.

CSD registration lapsed

Central Supplier Database record gone dormant, banking details unverified, or the directors on CSD no longer matching what sits at CIPC.

B-BBEE affidavit mismatch

A sworn affidavit where the tender asked for a verified certificate, or a level that does not agree with the turnover written on the same page.

No joint-venture consent

Two firms bidding together with no signed JV agreement, no split of the scope of work, and no board letter from either side consenting to it.

No local-content declaration

Designated sectors need SATS 1286 filled in and signed. A pipe or valve schedule with nothing attached is struck out without a query being raised.

Late for the site meeting

Compulsory briefings want your name on the attendance register before it closes. Arriving twenty minutes late counts the same as not arriving.

We read it the way the evaluator does

Send us the tender document and whatever you have drafted so far. We print the returnable schedule, lay it on the left of the desk, and work down it item by item against your file. Every form gets a page count, a signature check and a date check, and anything missing goes onto a list with the name of the person who has to fetch it. You get that list the same day, usually inside four hours, ranked by how long each item takes to fix. A commissioner of oaths is a morning. A fresh tax compliance PIN is ten minutes. A verified B-BBEE certificate is three weeks, which is exactly why we would rather find it now than in the week the tender closes. Then we pack the file, number it, and tell you which envelope each part belongs in.

Closing this week?

Send the document and your draft today and we come back with the returnable list before you close for the day.

Send the document
We had been tendering for four years and never once got past the first envelope. Koevert found eleven things wrong with our file in one afternoon, and we won the next job we sent for.
Petrus Mokoena, Mokoena Plumbing & Drainage, Bethlehem

Get in touch

Bloemfontein. We answer inside a working day — and inside two hours if the tender closes this week.