Qualifications
Qualifications are the conditions and assumptions a bidder attaches to its price — the circumstances under which that number holds.
Also written as qualification, clarifications, assumptions.
Last updated
Reviewed by Eric Collin · President and Founder of Firmo Construction, 20+ years in preconstruction and bid evaluation
Typical ones: work performed during normal hours, continuous and unobstructed access, the price held for thirty days, a stated escalation assumption, a specific delivery sequence, no premium time.
The distinction from an exclusion is worth being precise about. An exclusion says the bidder is not doing the work. A qualification says the bidder is doing it, but on stated terms. Two bidders can carry identical scope at nearly identical prices and still not be comparable, because one assumed weekday work and the other assumed weekends.
They are arguably more dangerous than exclusions, because they read as boilerplate. An exclusion names a piece of work and invites the question of who else carries it. A qualification names a condition, sits in a paragraph that looks like every other bidder's paragraph, and quietly does not match.
No arithmetic fixes a qualification mismatch. Unlike a scope difference, which can be adjusted with an add or a deduct, differing assumptions have to be resolved by asking.
- Exclusion vs qualification
What is the difference between an exclusion and a qualification on a bid?
- Exclusions
Exclusions are the items a bidder states are not included in its price.
- Apples-to-apples comparison
An apples-to-apples comparison is one where every bid covers the same scope, so the prices differ only by what the bidders charge rather than by what they included.
- Scope of work
A scope of work is the written definition of what a package or contract covers — the work a bidder is being asked to price.
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