Why create a timeline for a formal procurement?
There are few things worse than suddenly realizing you should have put out your IFB or RFP a few weeks ago if you wanted to get it done on time. This could have been prevented if you had planned out a timeline for your formal procurement!
Formal procurements are so time consuming, they can sneak up on you if you don’t plan them out ahead of time.
I’m fortunate to have a team that all share different responsibilities in the procurement process, so it doesn’t all fall on my shoulders. However, it does take coordination to ensure we all have our parts completed on time.
One thing we do is sit down and plan out a timeline for our upcoming bid season well in advance. I’m talking planning in October for contracts that start the upcoming July.
Though it’s been debunked, Abraham Lincoln is often crediting with this quote. While he may have never said it, the wisdom is still there. Spending even a little time planning ahead saves effort in the long run.
Having our procurement process planned early ensures we have plenty of time to work through each of the steps in the formal procurement process.
The process of creating the timeline for a formal procurement really takes very little time. But having those pre-planned target dates relieves some of the stress later, I promise!
Creating the Timeline for a Formal Procurement
When planning a timeline for a formal procurement, you want to start with when the contract needs to be in place and work backwards.
You also need to go into this assuming you will not have the same vendor you did the previous year. Not that you’re trying to get rid of your current vendor, but you need to build in enough time for you to work out the details with a new vendor in the event you change.
A new vendor needs time to bring in product, work your sites into their delivery routes, get you set up with ordering, etc. This is part of encouraging free and open competition.
As I go through each step, I will use an example where we are bidding for our prime food vendor/distributor, and we need the contract to start July 1.
Remember, we’re working backwards!
Step 11: Contract Start Date
What date do you need the contract to start? For example, most of our contracts start July 1. However, other districts have different contract cycles, and if this is a one-time purchase, it might be mid-school year.
Step 10: Official Award
Our official contract awards are sent immediately after the School Board approves them, so there’s not much time between this and Step 9.
However, if your district doesn’t require school board approval, you would want to plan the official award to be given with enough time before the contract starts. Depending on the type of contract, you may not need much time between the official award and the contract start date, or you may need months.
Step 9: School Board Approval
If your school board has to approve a contract prior to your first purchase, you need to factor that in to your timeline.
Since we need to set up purchase orders and work through all the details in case it’s a new vendor, we like to get our July 1 contracts approved at the May board meeting or earlier.
For our example, let’s say our May board meeting is May 12.
That would give 7 weeks between the School Board Approval/Official Award and the Contract Start Date, which is appropriate in the event we got a new prime vendor. However, not all contracts will need that much time, so back it up if needed.
Step 8: Preliminary Award
The preliminary award is essentially the point where we determine who we are recommending to the Board for award.
Most boards set a deadline to submit items to go on the agenda. For this example, to get on the May 12 board agenda, we need to turn in the request by noon on April 21 – that’s just our own board’s deadlines, so check on your own board’s requirements. With that in mind, I would set a goal of making the preliminary award decision by April 20.
Step 7: Evaluate the Responses
Depending on the complexity of the contract, you might only need 1 or 2 days to evaluate a bid, or you might need a couple weeks. We typically only need a day for a single piece of equipment but a couple weeks if it’s for our prime vendor where we have 300+ line items we need to look at on multiple bids.
Evaluating proposals from an RFP can also be time-consuming, so you want to plan for that as well.
I’m going to say that I need 2 weeks to evaluate our prime vendor bids, so I would need to start evaluating April 6 to finish by April 20.
Step 6: Bid Opening
Since I need to start evaluating bids on April 6, I need the bid opening to be on April 6.
Step 5: Receive Responses & Step 4: Work with Vendors Through the Process
Between releasing the solicitation and the bid opening, you’ll be working with vendors through the process and receiving responses.
You may want to set a Pre-Approved Equal Deadline (optional).
We like to set a deadline for vendors to submit “pre-approved equal” requests so that we have time to research and test, if needed. For something like equipment, we might only ask for a day’s notice. For food, we usually ask for two weeks.
There’s nothing like getting a pre-approved equal request for 40 items the day before a bid opening. There’s no possible way we could do the list justice in so little time. Setting a pre-approved equal deadline allows us time to taste test any products we need to before we agree to it.
For this example bid, I am giving myself two weeks before the bid opening, so the pre-approved equal deadline will be March 23.
Step 3: Solicitation is Released/Advertised
This is the big one. How much time you give between when you release the solicitation document and the bid opening is crucial to whether or not vendors will find your process fair.
For most food/beverage bids, we try to give four weeks between the IFB release and the pre-approved equal deadline, plus the two weeks before the opening, for a total of 6 weeks.
That’s a lot of time, I know, but it’s a big bid, and this allows plenty of time for the vendors to work through your IFB.
RFPs are also time-consuming for vendors to complete, so you probably need a similar timeframe for RFPs.
One of the biggest complaints from vendors about school nutrition directors is when you don’t give them enough time to prepare your bid. This gives the advantage to your existing vendor because they already know your account and don’t need to spend as much time preparing your bid/proposal. If you’re not giving them enough time, they have a case against you for not being fair.
Don’t forget to advertise the solicitation as well. How long you need to post an advertisement varies state-to-state, but you’ll factor this into your timeline too.
Since I’m giving four weeks between the release and pre-approved equal deadline in my hypothetical bid, I’m going to need to set my solicitation release for February 23.
Step 2: Start Writing Your Solicitation
If you’re working with an up-to-date IFB template and your specs won’t take long, you might only need a few weeks. Most people need a lot more time to complete this though. I’ll give myself one month, so I’ll start January 24.
Step 1: Plan it Out
Again, this varies based on what you are buying. If you’re just replacing a broken oven, you might not need much time to research.
For food bids, the most time-consuming part of planning is figuring out which items you want to spec, especially if you do taste testing with students. Since we like to devote a lot of time to researching products, I am going to set a goal of starting to develop a list December 6. This will give me 5 weeks to do this, 7 if you include the two holiday weeks.
Putting it All Together
So in my hypothetical bid, I need to start researching products in early December to properly do a bid that will start July 1. It might sound insane, but I promise you will find the process much less stressful if you plan out each procurement ahead of time like this.
Start Early, but Not TOO Early
While you do want to start planning early and give the vendors plenty of time to complete the bid, you do not want to set your bid opening date too early in the year.
In my example, I’m asking vendors to know around March-April what they will charge me July through the next June. That means I’m asking for pricing that will be held for 15 months, so vendors are trying to predict what their costs will be 15 months out.
You could back it up a month or two and probably still get good pricing, but if you back it out too far, they won’t have any idea what their costs are going to be, so they are just going to inflate your prices instead to make up for the unknown. So, start early, but not too early!
