To track bids, give every invitation one record with five things: a status, a due date, an owner, a link to its documents, and a next action with a date. Keep all of them in one place that your whole office checks every morning. That means one list, not an inbox, a whiteboard and three estimators' memories.
That's the whole idea. The rest of this article shows how to set it up for a specialty trade sub, from the first invite email to the award, and how to turn the log into numbers that tell you which bids are worth your time.
TL;DR
- Every bid invitation gets one record: GC, project, trade scope, due date, owner, status, next action.
- Use a short list of statuses (Invited, Reviewing, Bidding, Submitted, Follow-up, Won, Lost, Passed) and log why you passed or lost.
- Check due dates by time as well as date. Many GCs set sub deadlines a day or more before their own bid.
- Follow up three times: confirm receipt, check scope mid-bid, call the day before it is due.
- Review the log monthly. Win rate by GC, by job type and by estimator tells you where to spend estimating hours.
Table of Contents
- Why bids get lost before they are priced
- The five fields every bid record needs
- Pick a short list of statuses
- Triage the same day an invite arrives
- Where to keep the log: four options
- Follow up at three points
- Track the risk, not just the deadline
- Turn the log into numbers
- Our perspective: what we've seen with trade subs
- How Subascent handles bid tracking
- A weekly rhythm that keeps bids from slipping
- FAQ
- Sources
Why bids get lost before they are priced
Most missed bids are not pricing failures. They are tracking failures. An invite lands in one person's inbox. A second invite for the same project arrives from a different GC. An addendum shows up three days later and nobody connects it to the right bid. The due date is in an email subject line, and the time zone is in the PDF.
If you run a masonry, drywall or electrical shop with two estimators, you already know how this goes. The estimator who is out sick on Thursday takes the due date with him. The owner finds out Monday that a GC you wanted to work for never got a number.
Three habits cause most of the damage:
- Invites live in personal inboxes. Nobody else can see them.
- Due dates live in someone's head or a sticky note. Nothing warns you.
- Outcomes are never recorded. You can't tell which GCs are worth chasing because you never wrote down what happened.
Fix those three and you've fixed most of the problem. You don't need a big system to do it. You need a consistent one.
The five fields every bid record needs
Keep the record small. If it takes more than a minute to enter an invite, people stop entering them.
| Field | What goes in it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Project and GC | Project name, GC, GC contact, phone and email | You will call this person the day before the bid is due |
| Scope | Trade or divisions you are pricing (for example, Division 09 drywall and framing) | Stops you pricing the wrong package |
| Due date and time | Date, time and time zone, plus the GC's internal deadline if different | The date alone is not enough |
| Owner | One named estimator | One name means no one assumes someone else has it |
| Status and next action | Where it stands and what happens next, with a date | A bid with no next action is a bid that stalls |
Add optional fields only when you will use them: estimated bid value, job type (public, private, tenant improvement, new build), and lead source. Those three feed your reports later.
Capture the due date the right way
Write down the sub bid deadline, not just the project's bid date. GCs often want sub numbers well ahead of their own submission so they can level bids. If the invite says the project bids Friday, ask when they need your number. Put that time in the record.
Also write the time zone. A GC in one time zone inviting a sub in another is a common way to lose an afternoon. For public work, the instructions to bidders usually state a closing time, and late bids are typically rejected. A sample is the Springfield, Missouri JOC plumbing bid notice, which spells out an upload deadline down to the hour on an e-bidding system. If you bid direct to owners on public jobs, treat the clock as hard.
Our own guide on how bid due date tracking works for trade subs goes deeper on reminders and deadline rules.
Pick a short list of statuses
Statuses should describe what you do next, not how you feel about the job. Eight is plenty:
- Invited. It arrived. Nobody has looked yet.
- Reviewing. The estimator is reading plans and specs to decide whether to bid.
- Bidding. You are actively pricing it.
- Submitted. Your number has gone to the GC.
- Follow-up. You are waiting on the GC and have a call scheduled.
- Won. You got the award or a letter of intent. It moves to the job side.
- Lost. Someone else got it. Record the reason if you can learn it.
- Passed. You decided not to bid. Record why.
The Passed status is the one most subs skip, and it is the most useful. If you pass on twenty bids a month, you want to know whether it was because of capacity, distance, a GC with a payment history, or scope you don't do. After three months, that list shows you who to stop answering.
Triage the same day an invite arrives
An invite that sits for three days is already half lost. Set a same-day rule: someone logs it and makes a go or no-go call on the first pass.
Ask five questions:
- Is it our trade and our size? A 400-unit multifamily may not suit a three-person framing crew.
- Do we know this GC? Past payment behavior matters as much as the price.
- Do we have time to bid it properly? A rushed number is worse than no number.
- Is the due date realistic? Count plan review, takeoff and quote time backward from the deadline.
- Are all the documents there? Drawings, spec sections, addenda and the bid form.
If the answers are mostly yes, move it to Bidding and assign an owner. If not, mark it Passed and write a one-line reason. A polite decline email to the GC takes thirty seconds and keeps the relationship.
If you get invites in several formats, it helps to know what you are looking at. Our field guide to types of subcontractor bid invitations covers the common ones. Masonry shops can use our masonry subcontractor bid invitation checklist as a first-pass screen.
Where to keep the log: four options
The best tool is the one your team actually updates. Here are the realistic options for a sub with 1 to 50 employees.
| Option | Works when | Breaks when |
|---|---|---|
| Shared spreadsheet | One or two estimators, under 30 active bids | Several people edit at once, no reminders, documents live elsewhere |
| Email folders and flags | One person handles every invite | That person is out, or invites need an owner and a status |
| General CRM or sales pipeline | You already live in it and can add a due-date field and alerts | It treats bids like sales leads, with no link to estimates or jobs |
| Bid management built for trade subs | Invites arrive daily, you run multiple estimators, you want bid data tied to jobs | You won't enter data, which is true of any tool |
A spreadsheet is a fine start. Set it up with the five fields above, sort it by due date, and color the rows due within 48 hours. Many subs run this way for years.
The cracks show up at volume. When you're getting ten or more invites a week, the work of reading each email, copying details, and chasing documents becomes its own job. Our write-up on cutting 10 to 15 hours a week with bid invitation tracking looks at that time cost for trade subs.
One warning about tools. Many bid platforms are built for the GC side: they send invitations and compare sub responses. That is the reverse of your job. As a sub you receive invites from many GCs, in many formats, and you need them in one list with your deadlines. Check which side a tool was designed for before you commit. Our guide to construction software built for subs explains the difference.
Follow up at three points
Submitting the number is not the end. GCs get dozens of bids, and a clean follow-up routine keeps you in the conversation.
One GC-side bid management guide from Korus describes follow-up at three intervals: confirming receipt shortly after the invitation, a mid-bid check to resolve RFI and scope questions, and a final direct call the day before the bid is due. The GC's view is useful to you, because it shows when they expect to hear from you.
Here is how that looks from the sub's chair:
- Within a day of the invite: confirm. A short email or call to the GC's estimator. "Got the invite for the school addition, we're reviewing, will let you know if we bid." It shows you're serious and gets you on their coverage list.
- Mid-bid: clarify. Send RFIs and scope questions while there's time for answers. If addenda arrive, confirm which ones you've priced. A missed addendum can wreck a number.
- Day before due: call. Ask if they have everything they need from you, and if your trade is still open. On a critical trade like electrical or fire protection, this call is when you find out whether your scope is being carried the way you think.
- After submission: confirm receipt. Email is not delivery. Ask whether the number arrived and whether they need anything else.
- After the GC's bid date: ask where you stand. Wait a few days, then call. If they won the job, you want to be first on their list. If they didn't, you can close out the record.
Write each follow-up into the log as a dated next action. The log should tell you every morning who to call.
What to say when you call
Keep it short and specific. Name the project, say you submitted on a date, and ask one question: "Are we carried in your number, and is there anything you'd like us to revisit?" GCs answer direct questions. They ignore vague ones.
Don't push for the price they are carrying from other subs. Ask whether your scope is clear and whether any exclusions concern them. That gets you useful information without putting them in an awkward spot.
Track the risk, not just the deadline
A bid record that only holds dates misses half the picture. Each bid also carries risk: long lead times on switchgear, limited site access, a tight schedule, an owner who pays slow.
A Construction Executive piece on pricing risk in construction projects recommends a formal risk register for each bid rather than a gut-feel markup. List each exposure, decide whether it is carried in the base cost, covered by a contingency line, or managed in the field, and write that decision down.
You don't need a complicated form. Add a notes field to the bid record with three lines: the top three risks, how each is priced, and who on your team needs to know. If you win, that note goes to the project manager and the foreman. It is worth reading the piece on how profit is lost before a project starts: it argues that estimators and field teams often work from different understandings of the job, and that the stronger specialty firms sit down together to decode the estimate.
That handoff is where a bid log pays you back twice. The same record that tracked the bid becomes the starting point for the job budget.
Turn the log into numbers
Once you have a few months of records, five numbers tell you where your estimating time is going.
- Win rate overall. Bids won divided by bids submitted.
- Win rate by GC. Some GCs shop every trade and never award to you. Others call you first.
- Win rate by job type. Public hard-bid work, private competitive work and negotiated work behave differently.
- Pass rate and pass reasons. Shows you whether you are saying no for good reasons.
- Estimating hours per bid won. If you track time, this tells you what winning really costs.
Here's an example with made-up numbers. Say your electrical shop submitted 60 bids in a quarter and won 9. That's a 15% win rate. Now split it by GC. Four GCs account for 6 of the 9 wins from 18 bids. The other 42 bids, spread across a dozen GCs, produced 3 wins. The conclusion is plain: give the four GCs your best estimator and fastest turnaround, and be pickier on the rest.
That example is illustrative, not a benchmark. Your own numbers will vary by trade, region and market. What matters is that you can see them. For a general reference point, ConstructConnect has published win rate ranges for commercial GCs, but those are general contractors, not trade subs, so use your own history instead.
Our perspective: what we've seen with trade subs
We build software for specialty trade subcontractors, and the same pattern shows up over and over. The shop is not bad at estimating. It is bad at knowing what is in the pipeline.
The owner thinks the shop is bidding twenty jobs. The estimator thinks it is bidding twelve. The inbox holds twenty-six. Nobody is wrong, because nobody has one list.
So our advice is blunt. Before you buy anything, agree on the five fields, the eight statuses and the three follow-up calls. Run them in a spreadsheet for a month. If it holds, keep it. If you find yourself spending hours copying details out of emails, or you miss a due date because the sheet didn't warn you, that's when software earns its keep.
What we'd want in any bid tracker for a trade sub: invites that land in one list from every GC, due-date reminders that account for time, an owner on every bid, and a clean path from a won bid to a job with a budget. Bid data that dies when the job starts is wasted. The estimate is the budget. The scope you priced is what the foreman builds.
That is why we connect bid tracking to estimating, takeoff, submittals, field reporting and profit tracking in one place instead of leaving them as separate tools.
— Dave
How Subascent handles bid tracking
Subascent is job and bid management software built for specialty trade subcontractors: electrical, plumbing, HVAC and mechanical, masonry, concrete, framing, drywall, roofing, fire protection, low-voltage, painting, flooring, glazing, insulation and steel and rebar. It includes automated bid tracking, estimating, PDF takeoff as a paid add-on, submittals and RFIs, change orders, daily field reports, crew tracking with the free CrewTrack mobile app, QuickBooks sync and profit analytics.
If your bid list has outgrown a spreadsheet, you can try Subascent and set up your first bids in a short session. Plans are monthly or annual flat-rate, with a free trial first.
A weekly rhythm that keeps bids from slipping
Systems fail when nobody looks at them. Pick a rhythm and keep it.
Every morning, 10 minutes. Sort by due date. Anything due in 48 hours gets a named owner and a plan. Anything with a follow-up call due gets made.
Every Friday, 20 minutes. Review the week. Move bids to Submitted, Won, Lost or Passed. Record outcomes while you remember them. Check for addenda on open bids.
Every month, 45 minutes. Pull the five numbers. Decide which GCs get priority and which invites you will stop answering. Look at whether estimating hours match the work you are winning.
Add it to the calendar. Without a standing slot, the log decays within a month.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Tracking only winners. You learn nothing from a list of jobs you already have.
- Letting statuses multiply. Twelve statuses means nobody uses them the same way.
- Skipping addenda. Log each addendum on the bid record and mark when you priced it.
- No owner. "The office" is not an owner.
- Forgetting the handoff. When you win, the notes, risks and assumptions move to the project manager.
Estimating templates also help here, because they cut the time each bid takes and keep numbers consistent. See why estimating templates matter for subcontractors, and the benefits of estimating software for small subs if you are weighing a move off the workbook.
FAQ
What is the simplest way to track bids?
A shared spreadsheet with one row per bid works. Include the GC, project, scope, due date and time, owner, status and next action. Sort by due date and review it every morning. Move to dedicated software when you can no longer keep it current by hand.
How do I follow up on a bid I submitted?
Confirm receipt shortly after you send it. Then call the GC's estimator before their bid date to ask whether your scope is clear and whether anything needs revisiting. After their bid date, check in a few days later. Log each contact with a date so the next step is never a guess.
Should I track bids I decide not to price?
Yes. Record them as Passed with a one-line reason. After a few months you can see which GCs, job types or due dates cause most of your passes. That tells you who to prioritize and who to stop answering.
Can I track bids in my email or CRM?
You can, if you add a due date with a reminder, a named owner and a status. Email alone fails when the person who owns the inbox is out. A general CRM can work, but it usually has no link to estimates, takeoffs or the job you win.
Sources
- Pricing Risk in (and Out of) Construction Projects, Construction Executive
- How Profit Is Lost Before a Construction Project Even Starts, Construction Executive
- Construction Bid Management: The Complete GC Guide, Korus
- Job Order Contracting Plumbing Sewer Bid Notice, City of Springfield, Missouri
- What Good Bid-Hit Ratios Look Like for Commercial GCs in 2026, ConstructConnect