[ Resources ]

The reference desk.

How the product works, how control is enforced, what it plugs into, and the vocabulary the whole thing is written in. Everything here is checkable.

Start here.

Three pages that answer most of what a first call covers.

Ten stagesPlatform
Intake to submission, a human gate at every send, and the portfolio brain behind it.
Three rulesTrust & control
Nothing auto-sends, money is deterministic code, and the agent never sees your keys.
Your stackIntegrations
Outlook, OneDrive, and Excel natively. Bid sources connect. Takeoff stays exactly where it is.

Field notes.

Written for estimators, about the things that actually break a pursuit.

All articles

By trade.

The traps that break a bid are different in every division.

The demo scenario.

Every walkthrough runs the same pursuit, so you can compare what you saw against what we published.

The pursuit: Riverside Office Tower, a fictional commercial mechanical pursuit used throughout this site and in every live walkthrough.
The set: Twenty-eight documents and three addenda, including a front end nobody assigned, a chiller schedule, and nine vendor quotes arriving in the last hour.
The catches: A mandatory site visit, a spec-versus-drawing conflict, an excluded startup with a short warranty, and a grand total that disagrees with its own itemization.
The point: Every finding is cited to a document and page, and nothing leaves the office without an estimator approving it.

Names, companies, and prices in the demo scenario are fictional.

Bid desk glossary.

The vocabulary this product is written in, defined the way an estimator uses it.

ITBInvitation to Bid: The package a general contractor issues to solicit subcontractor pricing. Where a pursuit starts, and where the eligibility clauses hide.
AddendumAddendum: A change to the bid documents issued before close. Everything you already read may have been amended by one, and acknowledging them is usually a condition of a responsive bid.
AlternateAlternate: Priced scope the owner may accept or reject at award. Priced separately, awarded together, and a common source of margin surprises.
LDsLiquidated damages: A fixed daily amount owed for finishing late, written into the front end. It converts a schedule risk into a number that belongs in the bid.
LevelingBid leveling: Normalizing vendor quotes to the same scope so they can be compared honestly. Where exclusions become visible and stated totals get reconciled.
Scope gapScope gap: Work that every bidder assumed belonged to someone else. Found before close it is an RFI; found after award it is an argument.
RFIRequest for information: A formal question about the documents. Its value depends almost entirely on being asked before pricing rather than after.
BAFOBest and final offer: A second round of pricing requested after bids are opened, usually against a compressed clock.
BuyoutBuyout: Converting the bid’s assumed vendor pricing into actual purchase orders after award. Where every optimistic assumption gets settled.
Bid bondBid bond: Security guaranteeing you will enter the contract if awarded. Bonding capacity is a gate on which pursuits you can chase at all.
PrequalPrequalification: Approval to bid at all, granted before the pursuit. Missing its deadline disqualifies you as effectively as missing the close.
Order of precedenceOrder of precedence: The front-end clause that decides which document governs when two disagree. Usually the specification over the drawings, which is the opposite of how most people price.
Delegated designDelegated design: Engineering the specification assigns to the bidder, sealed by a licensed engineer. A fee and a schedule, neither of them in the tonnage.
TakeoffTakeoff: Measuring quantities from the drawings. ArosBid does not do this and does not intend to; it runs the bid around whatever you already use.

Still the fastest answer: watch it run.

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