South African Tender Toolkit
Decide before you bid. Price before you promise. Built for South African tenders.
What’s Included
- SA Tender Toolkit Chesly.Tech
- How to Use SA Tender Toolkit
- SA Tender Toolkit Handbook
- SA Tender Toolkit One Pager
- SA Tender Toolkit User Guide
Key Features
- ✓ 9 linked tabs across 4 decision stages
- ✓ weighted bid score out of 100 with instant recommendation
- ✓ full costing model showing real margin
- ✓ markup and cash-flow exposure
- ✓ compliance register with automatic expiry warnings
- ✓ 22-point submission checklist with live readiness percentage
- ✓ printable decision record with five cross-tab conflict checks
What This Solves
- ✓ spending 40 to 120 hours on a bid you were never going to win
- ✓ discovering the margin is 9% after you've already committed
- ✓ finding out your b-bbee affidavit expired the week you submit
- ✓ getting disqualified on paperwork before anyone reads your price
- ✓ having no record of why you bid on anything
- ✓ not knowing which buyers are actually worth your time
Who It’s For
- – – construction & civils contractors
- – cleaning and hygiene companies
- – security companies
- – – maintenance & facilities businesses
- – it suppliers and system integrators
- – general suppliers
- – professional service firms
- – any sme regularly considering government or private tenders
How It Helps You
- ✓ scores the opportunity before you commit resources
- ✓ shows the real margin after costs and contingency
- ✓ calculates the price you'd need to hit your target margin
- ✓ flags expired compliance documents before they cost you a bid
- ✓ warns you when the score and the costing disagree
- ✓ builds a win-rate record by issuing organisation
Why You Need It
- ✓ a single tender submission costs a small business 40 to 120 hours of owner and admin time
- ✓ nine of the ten most common disqualifiers are administrative and entirely preventable
- ✓ five well-chosen bids at a 40% win rate beat twenty scattered bids at 10%
- ✓ one toolkit
- ✓ reusable for every tender from now on
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this toolkit find tenders for me or submit them?
No — it's a decision and preparation tool, not a tender listing service or a submission agent. You find the tender; this tells you whether it's worth your time, what it will actually pay you, and what's still missing before you submit.
How does the Bid Score actually work?
Score every tender across 12 weighted criteria totaling 100. Mandatory requirements and certifications carry the most weight. Yes earns full points, Unsure half, No zero, while N/A removes the criterion. Two mandatory criteria can disqualify a bid if marked No.
What if I disagree with the recommendation?
Override it — the toolkit only asks you to record why. A new buyer may justify a thin margin, but an unexplained override becomes a guess six months later, when you need to know which instincts to trust.
Does it cover CIDB, PSIRA and COIDA requirements?
The Compliance Register tracks CSD, SARS Tax Compliance Status, B-BBEE, CIPC, banking, certified IDs, insurance and financial statements. Each has an expiry date and status: Valid, Expiring Soon, Expired or Missing. It organises and warns; it does not verify documents.
Will it tell me what price to bid?
No. Be suspicious of anyone who claims to know. The toolkit shows what a price leaves after direct costs, overheads and contingency, plus the price needed for your target margin. Market pricing is your judgement—the toolkit gives you the real numbers.
Does it work in Google Sheets, or do I need Excel?
Both. Upload the file to Google Sheets and it converts automatically with formulas and formatting intact. It works in Excel 2016 or later, and opens in Apple Numbers and LibreOffice Calc, though the colour warnings display most reliably in Excel or Sheets.
Is it only for government tenders?
The Compliance Register is built around South African public procurement documents, so that tab is government-focused. Everything else — the Bid Scorer, Pricing Model, Submission Checklist and Decision Record — works equally well for private-sector tenders, RFPs and large quotations.
What exactly do I get when I buy?
Five files: the Excel and Google Sheets-native toolkit (9 linked tabs), a Handbook on building the bidding discipline, a step-by-step User Guide, a How-to-Use PDF, and a one-page overview. One purchase, reusable for every tender from now on.
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