Bid4Grid
An RfQ groups one or more Lots. A Procurement Lot is a group of identical units of one Category (for example, 4 × 37.5 kVA single-phase transformers); the requested quantity is shown in units. The buyer releases the RfQ from Draft into Accepting Bids; the window closes automatically at the configured date.
The RfQ catalog identifies Procurement and Equipment Sale requests. Its open count reflects the current filters. Deadline warnings are emphasized only while an RfQ is accepting bids; evaluation and award cards retain the closing date in neutral styling. Equipment Sale dates indicate when the lot should be picked up, rather than an expected delivery.
Both RfQ types start as Draft, hidden from sellers. For Procurement, add lots for the equipment you need to buy. For Equipment Sale, add entire equipment lots with photos and descriptions. When the details are ready, use Release RfQ, subject to the bid-window rules.
Procurement bid requirements: buyers can set accepted equipment conditions (New, Refurbished, Repaired) and a requested minimum warranty for each Lot. Accepting Refurbished or Repaired also permits New offers, including on existing lots. New-only requests reject Refurbished and Repaired. Sellers select the actual offered condition and may offer a shorter warranty, including no warranty. Warranty shortfalls are flagged in bid forms, bid summaries, and evaluation for buyer review, not blocked or treated as technical hard failures. Standard specification requirements still apply.
Status labels: Evaluating means the RfQ is still under review. Partially Awarded is shown when some, but not all, lot quantities have been awarded. Fully Awarded means every lot quantity is resolved. Partially Awarded is a display classification, not a separate backend lifecycle status.
Lots follow the parent RfQ lifecycle. Core specifications lock at creation; remaining fields lock when the lot enters evaluation, is awarded, or is cancelled.
PDF spec sheets can pre-fill lot requirements. Each lot includes quantity, technical requirements, and delivery details. Documents remain visible during bidding.
A lot closing without bids remains permanently Closed; the overall RfQ advances to Awarded once every child lot resolves to a terminal state.
Evaluators compare bids in a scoring matrix with criteria, evidence, notes, compliance checks, and weighted totals. Rule-based checks compare datasheets with the RfQ; manual entries take precedence. Seller identity is protected during evaluation. See the Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
Buyers receive RfQ status and award recommendation updates. Evaluators are notified when an RfQ closes, and sellers receive confirmation when bids are submitted.
Equipment Sale creation is a Buyer-company setting. It is hidden for Seller-only companies in company profiles and Django admin, and sellers cannot change it through the company API. Sellers can still respond to eligible released requests with purchase offers without enabling this setting.
Buyer and Seller seats enable RfQs, bids, evaluation and awards, subject to the user's role and active matching company seat package. Evaluators use Buyer-company seats. Company administration and authorized viewing remain seat-free; seats do not grant roles or access to another company's records.
Preferred, Block & Hide, and seller relationship removal require Buyer access with a Buyer seat and active Buyer seat package, including for company admins. Seller viewing and existing company boundaries are unchanged.
New companies start with zero capacity. Platform administrators grant capacity; available seats go automatically to eligible email-verified members in membership order. Company admins are excluded by default and must request a seat. When full, new members retain view access while waiting. Existing seat packages and valid manual seats are preserved.
New-company registration requests one 20-seat Buyer or Seller seat package for manual activation. No working seats are granted until activation. Joining an existing company does not request a new package. Buyer membership renews annually: admins confirm payment and set the renewal deadline. At expiry, working actions stop but viewing, administration and assigned seats remain. Sellers pay only a nominal one-time initiation fee with no annual renewal. Manual Seller activation grants 20-seat capacity and automatic assignment to eligible verified team members. Online payments are unavailable and registration does not charge you. Contact contact@bid4grid.com for seats or increased capacity. No payments are collected; seller transaction fees are not implemented.
In Django admin, open Buyers & Users > User seats to manage assignments, separate from Company seat packages. Entries in this section are alphabetical. Company pages include Manage user seats and Assign company admin seat shortcuts, with the latter prefilling the company and its owner. The Seat assigned column shows a green check for manual and automatic assignments. To remove an admin's seat, open it and choose Delete; the admin is not automatically reassigned. Administration, viewing and records are preserved, as are package status and capacity. Automatic member seats may return during reconciliation if the member remains eligible. Platform staff/superusers do not need seats.
This feature is enabled per buyer company by its company admin (company creator) through the company profile, matching AI/OCR configuration ownership. Other team members and platform reviewers can view but cannot change the setting in the application. New companies start with it disabled; existing companies remain enabled. When disabled, New RfQ skips the type selector and uses Procurement. Existing Equipment Sale drafts may be edited or cancelled but cannot be released until access is enabled again. Already-released requests continue through bidding, evaluation, and awards normally; their Equipment Sale labels and historical records remain visible.
Platform administrators can click a company name on the Admin dashboard to inspect company details, assigned users, seat packages, evaluation tier, and existing company compliance documents. This review is read-only: company owners retain control of settings and uploads. Document upload and expiry dates and signed view/download links are available; an expiry date does not establish authenticity. Formal review decisions, document version history, and access audit logging are deferred to a later phase.
Besides standard procurement RfQs, a buyer can create a Equipment Sale RfQ to list its own surplus, used, or failed units. The RfQ type is chosen at creation and cannot be changed.
Equipment Sale lot editing uses the same simplified equipment fields as creation, without procurement or engineering specifications. Category and quantity remain read-only. Authorized Buyers in the owning company may add photos while bidding is open; existing photos cannot be removed or replaced after Draft. Photo additions stop at the bidding deadline. Lot descriptions stay locked after Draft, while pickup details remain editable.
In Company settings, the company admin can invite colleagues from Team members by email. Buyer companies can invite Buyers or Evaluators; Seller companies can invite Sellers. Other team members cannot manage invitations. Pending invitations show their email, role, status and expiry. Invitations expire after seven days and can be resent or cancelled. Resending replaces the old link. The invited colleague registers with the invited email and joins the correct company without entering a company code. Email verification and seat availability rules still apply; an invitation does not grant company-admin rights or reserve a seat. Existing account holders should contact support for membership review. This is separate from inviting seller companies to an RfQ.
API health and collapsed System details appear on the right of the totals strip. Company cards keep company admin, billing, and compliance details alongside Team members; smaller screens stack the two sections. All company information and controls remain visible.
System details shows measured initial JavaScript + CSS and global CSS sizes (raw and gzip) from the deployed
frontend build. Lazy-loaded page bundles are excluded from the initial total. The public API health page
shows health status only, not frontend size estimates. Production builds generate these measurements with
npm run build; if metadata is unavailable, System details says so.
Equipment Sale evaluations review offers for the buyer's described equipment, not equipment supplied by the seller. Seller specification and product-document matching does not apply, and missing seller datasheets do not create automatic required-spec failures. Buyer equipment documents and photos remain available for reference, as do optional offer attachments. Evaluate total purchase price and pickup. Seller compliance and configured manual scoring remain separate checks. Procurement specification matching is unchanged.
Purchase scoring covers sale proceeds (50%), pickup (20%), relevant experience (10%), and purchase/payment terms (20%). Higher total proceeds are better. Scores use 1 (unacceptable), 3 (acceptable), or 5 (excellent), with notes and optional service proposals as supporting evidence. These are manual assessments, not automatic price or document scores.
Compare and rank only within the same offer type. Earlier procurement assessments, including automatic required-spec failures, remain stored but are hidden from the scoring screen and excluded from offer scoring and mandatory gates. New offer criteria require fresh assessments. A current COI remains the seller compliance check; other attachments are supporting documents, not additional required gates.
Purchase scoring omits criterion info icons and uses a compact criterion column. Offer price breakdowns are concise and empty service/turnaround notes are omitted; weights, mandatory gates, score controls, totals, and bid cutoff remain visible.
The Evaluation Queue and scoring header identify each RfQ as Procurement or Equipment Sale. Equipment Sale offer headers identify Purchase offer. These labels do not change access permissions or expose other companies' offers.
On scoring, Bid cutoff shows the selected lot's scheduled bidding deadline, inheriting the RfQ date when no lot-specific date is set. Its tooltip clarifies that this is a submission deadline for bids and offers, not an evaluation deadline.
Platform administrators also see Awarded business: one row per seller allocation in an approved award, including split and partial awards. It shows buyer and seller companies, RfQ/lot/bid/award references, equipment supply or purchase from buyer, awarded units, unit value, awarded value, approval date and approver. Draft/rejected recommendations and approved no-award decisions are excluded. Filter by buyer, seller, approval dates and type; totals stay separate by type and currency. Pages contain 100 allocations, and the dedicated awarded-business CSV includes all matching allocations, not just the visible page. Its filters/export are separate from the existing bid-process report. Awarded business appears above the bid-process Reference, Company and date filters, which stay with their own report.
Awarded values use current saved awards and bid prices, not immutable financial snapshots. USD follows the platform's current pricing convention. Supply includes per-unit freight; purchases use the total offer for the entire lot, excluding freight. Installation is excluded. An approved award does not establish transaction completion, payment, revenue or fees. This report does not calculate fees, issue invoices or process payments. Detailed valuation notes are available under How values are calculated; compact company, type and date filters use the standard blue filter-bar styling.
Bids includes supply bids and purchase offers, with an Offer type filter. Reports identifies each type in the totals and lists all matching purchase offers with their lot reference, seller, status, entire-lot quantity, and total offer. These records follow the same company access rules as bids, and are included in CSV, PDF, and Print exports. Proposed sale proceeds are not approved award amounts. Price-per-kVA analytics and lowest-total comparisons apply only to supply bids.
Admins can view all bids and offers, including drafts. Buyers see submitted bids and offers for their company's RfQs on Bids; sellers see their company's bids and offers, including coworkers' drafts. Reports remains company-scoped for buyers and sellers and includes drafts in its filtered records.
Lot bid badges show your company's bid status and offered quantity, not competitors'. Aggregate bid counts remain separate. Browser tabs share a login: signing in or out in another tab reloads existing tabs and discards open forms. Use separate browsers or private sessions for simultaneous accounts.
Reports start with three role-focused totals, followed by detailed tables and recent activity. Buyers see RfQs, bids received, and awarded RfQs; sellers see RfQs bid on, submitted bids, and awarded bids; admins see platform-wide RfQs, bids, and awarded bids, with Company filtering available.
Search by Reference with Enter; Admin Company changes apply automatically. An optional Date range contains its own Apply/Clear buttons. Clear filters appears only when filters are applied. RfQ/issuer selectors, timeline-row controls, and saved presets are no longer shown. Analytics is collapsed by default for every role; expand it for available averages, status breakdowns, and six-month activity. CSV exports retain the report data for spreadsheet analysis. PDF and Print include analytics even when it is collapsed on screen. Detailed tables use full-width rows, and Longest Award Cycles appears when cycle records are available. Recent activity retains the 50-row limit.
Sellers can list available equipment outside competitive RfQs. Buyers can reserve inventory for an RfQ or a standalone request, including partial quantities.
Lots and Inventory use readable specification labels, including fixed tap changers. Inventory cards show rated frequency when provided, and the available-listing count reflects the current filters. Description and requirement expanders support Enter and Space; engineering-details buttons announce whether their details are expanded. Text dialogs keep keyboard focus inside, close with Escape, and return focus to the opener.
Managing listings:
Inventory Match:
60 and
"60").
Quantities and status:
Authenticated users can search records allowed by their role:
Evaluator protections:
R..., Lot L..., Inventory I.... Lots
created before the rename used A...; search still finds them by the old number.