Everything You Wanted To Know About Writing an Invitation To Bid But Were Afraid To ask

 

FCME uploads new episodes every Monday & Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. MST. Topics include proposal writing, bonds, types of contracts, why do business with the federal government, 8(a), business services for veterans and women, where federal opportunities are listed, and more. You can listen to the podcast here or with your favorite podcast provider (iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or Stitcher). FCME is also active on social media and launched the Federal Contracting Made Easy YouTube channel on January 1, 2019.

 

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“How To Write Your Invitation to Bid (IFB) Proposal.

Welcome to the Wonderful world of Federal Contracting Made Easy. It is our goal to take the complex world of Government Contracting and break it into simple steps that anyone can follow. This is episode number 88 and today we are going to discuss “How To Write Your Invitation to Bid (IFB) Proposal.

Last week we discussed pricing your proposal. This week we are going to talk about writing the proposal. But before we get started let’s roll the intro.

Welcome Back.

To recap, so far, we have reviewed the bid, reviewed the specifications, gotten pricing history, and priced out the items or services that the government is requesting. Now we need to roll everything into place and write that bid!!!

Writing an IFB Proposal

Most small businesses will end up writing proposals on Invitations To Bids. Now remember we discussed in earlier episodes that when the government writes the solicitation you will end up sending that back in with your final pricing numbers. In fact, you will end up filling out some forms that were in the package and submitting them to the government.

This sounds simple, but it is not. Even though you basically must do is fill in some blanks on the forms that the government has provided you, you must be very careful. Remember that the Government is going to review your package as if they have never seen it before. Even though they wrote the solicitation package.

Let’s look at some of the forms that you will be filling out.

DD Form 1707

Basically, the DD Form 1707 “Information to Offerors or Quoters” is a cover sheet that is included in the solicitation package. The information contained on in the document is mainly informational. The purpose is to gain information on why a company does not want to bid. This form is used by the Department of Defense (DoD), hence DD Form. The government will include this form on large dollar solicitation which are valued over $100,000.

Block 1: Solicitation Number – An example DoD solicitation number would be FA8201-19-R-A017. The number will identify the specific solicitation throughout the life of the buying action. If the government issues any amendments, it will contain this number plus the amendment number.

FA8201 – The first six digits Identifies the agency. In this case FA8201 – would represent a Hill Air Force Base buying office. The next two digits represents the fiscal year. In our example, this would be fiscal year 2019 the solicitation was issued, represented by “19”. The next digit “R” indicates the type of solicitation. See chart below for description. The rest of the characters are sequence numbers used by the government to track their solicitations. Alpha Character

Meaning

B

Invitation for Bid (IFB)

R

Request for Proposal (RFP)

Q

Request for Quote (RFQ)

C

Contract

P

Purchase Order

 

FCME uploads new episodes every Monday & Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. MST. Topics include proposal writing, bonds, types of contracts, why do business with the federal government, 8(a), business services for veterans and women, where federal opportunities are listed, and more. You can listen to the podcast here or with your favorite podcast provider (iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or Stitcher). FCME is also active on social media and launched the Federal Contracting Made Easy YouTube channel on January 1, 2019.

 

Website Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

 

“How To Write Your Invitation to Bid (IFB) Proposal.

Welcome to the Wonderful world of Federal Contracting Made Easy. It is our goal to take the complex world of Government Contracting and break it into simple steps that anyone can follow. This is episode number 88 and today we are going to discuss “How To Write Your Invitation to Bid (IFB) Proposal.

Last week we discussed pricing your proposal. This week we are going to talk about writing the proposal. But before we get started let’s roll the intro.

Welcome Back.

To recap, so far, we have reviewed the bid, reviewed the specifications, gotten pricing history, and priced out the items or services that the government is requesting. Now we need to roll everything into place and write that bid!!!

Writing an IFB Proposal

Most small businesses will end up writing proposals on Invitations To Bids. Now remember we discussed in earlier episodes that when the government writes the solicitation you will end up sending that back in with your final pricing numbers. In fact, you will end up filling out some forms that were in the package and submitting them to the government.

This sounds simple, but it is not. Even though you basically must do is fill in some blanks on the forms that the government has provided you, you must be very careful. Remember that the Government is going to review your package as if they have never seen it before. Even though they wrote the solicitation package.

Let’s look at some of the forms that you will be filling out.

DD Form 1707

Basically, the DD Form 1707 “Information to Offerors or Quoters” is a cover sheet that is included in the solicitation package. The information contained on in the document is mainly informational. The purpose is to gain information on why a company does not want to bid. This form is used by the Department of Defense (DoD), hence DD Form. The government will include this form on large dollar solicitation which are valued over $100,000.

Block 1: Solicitation Number – An example DoD solicitation number would be FA8201-19-R-A017. The number will identify the specific solicitation throughout the life of the buying action. If the government issues any amendments, it will contain this number plus the amendment number.

FA8201 – The first six digits Identifies the agency. In this case FA8201 – would represent a Hill Air Force Base buying office. The next two digits represents the fiscal year. In our example, this would be fiscal year 2019 the solicitation was issued, represented by “19”. The next digit “R” indicates the type of solicitation. See chart below for description. The rest of the characters are sequence numbers used by the government to track their solicitations. Alpha Character

Meaning

B

Invitation for Bid (IFB)

R

Request for Proposal (RFP)

Q

Request for Quote (RFQ)

C

Contract

P

Purchase Order