Beyond a Planholder’s List
A planholder’s list compiles a list of all of the vendors who have accessed a solicitation’s bid documents. Traditionally used by vendors, especially within construction solicitations, a planholder’s list has been a necessary part of the solicitation lifecycle. Within BidNet Direct, the planholder’s list can be made public or private, depending on the desired level of transparency or solicitation requirements. While a planholder’s list may be traditionally used by vendors, that doesn’t mean that the same type of list and tools aren’t useful for purchasing departments like yours. But what kind of benefits can you expect to receive from a planholder’s list and vendor reports?
Saves time and audit ready
Building a complete, internal planholder’s list can be a time consuming process for purchasing professionals such as yourself. It requires tracking and recording of each vendor who’s received bid and addenda information via email, in person, etc. BidNet Direct’s platform makes it easy by automating the process. Your agency users can see what vendors have viewed or downloaded a solicitation, which have downloaded all the addenda, and those who have actually submitted a bid. That level of information goes well beyond the publicly displayed planholder’s list and will help your organization ensure that all vendors submitting bids have all of the necessary information, and that their bid is compliant. If a vendor missed an addendum, or got the information from a third party planning room, their bid may be missing necessary components, leading to an incomplete submission. The extensive reporting and auditing of BidNet Direct saves government agencies time by keeping them up to date on who has this information, and allowing them to disqualify bids from any vendors not on that list. Calder Grey, former Purchasing Coordinator at the City of Boulder, sums it up best, saying “One reason the City [of Boulder] and other participating agencies request that all vendors register to receive alerts regarding upcoming solicitations and any issued addenda is to make certain that bidders have all of the information, and do not waste time submitting a non-responsive bid. The City always tells interested vendors, “[BidNet Direct] is where we list everything, and if you go through anyone else, you are not guaranteed to have up-to-date information.”
Reflect on and improve purchasing process
With BidNet Direct’s purchasing platform, your agency can run a report showing how many vendors matched with your solicitation, how many viewed it, and which downloaded documents. By comparing the number of vendors that viewed your solicitation with those that actually downloaded the documents, your agency can reflect on your solicitation specifics to see if there’s a reason why your bids may not be receiving an appropriate amount of bid responses. In fact, if a solicitation isn’t receiving the expected amount of bid responses, many agencies will reach out to vendors who either matched or viewed the solicitation to see why they didn’t download the bid documents. This provides your agency with firsthand feedback regarding any information that may need to be changed.
The same can also be done with vendors who have downloaded the bid documents but did not submit a formal response. Reaching out to vendors who did not submit a formal bid will allow your agency to clear up any questions or points of concern for vendors. After speaking with vendors, you may also find these questions or concerns warrant issuing an addenda to all matching vendors. These steps will hopefully lead to an increase in bid responses among matched vendors, and thereby increased bid competition for your agency. On BidNet Direct, buyers can also require a bid intent requesting vendors state if they intend to bid, do not intend to bid, or are undecided before downloading documents.
Provides a fair and transparent purchasing process
The report of all document takers and vendors that were sent the solicitation can also help an agency ensure that they are conducting a fair and transparent purchasing process, something that is crucial for all local buying organizations. Your agency can prove that they have met any outreach targets by providing the number of vendors your solicitation has reached to any necessary boards/commissions. If you haven’t met your outreach requirements, the platform makes it easy to find other matching vendors to distribute the solicitation to. To take that a step further, your agency can provide evidence that they have reached any required number of WMDBE vendors, an especially important aspect when dealing with any federal funds.
BidNet Direct’s vendor list and reporting is also fully audit ready. All interactions with your solicitations are date and time stamped, allowing your agency to ensure a fair and transparent purchasing process while also protecting the integrity of your agency’s purchasing process. Additionally, the planholder’s list eliminates the possibility of any back and forth with vendors over whether or not they accessed the required information in order to submit a bid.
BidNet Direct goes beyond the planholder’s list and makes it easy for government organizations like yours to ensure that all submitted bids come from registered vendors who have all the required information by automating the process.
Find out how BidNet Direct can help your government organization today! 
