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Guide

Responding to a tender: collecting the evidence without losing control of it.

Whether it is a government agency's request for proposal on GETS, a council contract or a private company's supplier tender, a strong response depends on supporting documents gathered from across your business and often from partners and subcontractors. That material includes pricing, staff CVs and commercial information you would not want a competitor to see.

This guide covers what is usually involved and how to organise it in one controlled place.

Documents a tender response usually draws on

Every tender sets its own requirements, and for government work the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) is where many New Zealand opportunities are published. The supporting material is similar from one tender to the next.

  • Company details: the Companies Office extract, NZBN, ownership and financial statements.
  • Insurance certificates, such as public liability and professional indemnity.
  • Health and safety policies, procedures and records, often asked for in detail.
  • Quality, environmental and privacy policies.
  • CVs and qualifications of the people who will deliver the work.
  • Case studies and referee details from past clients, shared with their permission.
  • Subcontractor and partner details, including their own insurances and policies.
  • The pricing schedule and the assumptions behind it.

A bid room that works

  1. 1

    Build a library once

    Keep standing material, policies, insurances and CVs, in a library room so each new bid starts from current documents. Re-uploading a policy can make it a new version, with the old one kept.

  2. 2

    Open a room per bid

    For each tender, create a room with folders that follow the tender's response sections.

  3. 3

    Collect from partners

    Use a document request list to ask subcontractors for their insurances and CVs. A public request-a-file link lets them upload without seeing the rest of the bid.

  4. 4

    Protect the pricing

    Keep the pricing folder visible only to the group that needs it, and make it view-only.

Working with joint bidders and subcontractors

Larger tenders are often joint bids. Your partner needs to see the methodology and the shared CVs, but perhaps not your margin. A subcontractor needs to supply its own documents and read the sections it is responsible for, but not the whole response.

In ShareAndGo, give each partner a group. Each group sees only the folders you allow, and a folder a group cannot see does not appear for its members. Ask partners to accept your NDA before they enter, and ShareAndGo records who accepted and when.

Questions between partners, such as who is writing which section or which referee to use, can be raised and answered inside the room with assignment, categories and priorities, so the bid manager can see what is still open.

View-only folders are rendered on our side and watermarked with the reader's name, email address and the date. If a draft is circulated more widely than it should be, the watermark shows whose copy it was.

After submission

Submit through the buyer's own portal or process, as the tender requires. Keep your bid room as the record of what was prepared and from which versions.

If the buyer asks clarifying questions, the room makes it quick to find the right document: ShareAndGo reads text from documents, including scans, so search finds words inside them with highlighted snippets.

When a bid is won, the same room can become the contract's working space. When it is lost, revoke partner access, export the room as a ZIP with its folder structure and an index of every document, and keep it for the next opportunity. Owners can also ask ShareAndGo's AI to suggest a folder structure for the next tender and sort uploads into it.

Frequently asked questions

Can subcontractors upload without an account?
Yes. Send them a public request-a-file link from a document request list, or invite them to the room. Invited readers confirm their email with a six-digit code.
Can I see whether a partner has reviewed their section?
Insights show who opened the room and what they read. On Professional and Business plans you also see how long each person spent on each document.
Is every upload checked?
Yes. Every upload is scanned for viruses, and nothing is served until the scan is clean.

Related guides

A grant application

Similar evidence, a different reader.

Board packs

When the board must approve the bid.

All guides

Every business process we cover.

ShareAndGo features

Everything a room can do.