It is 4:00 PM on a Thursday. You are trying to wrap up a budget for a custom home build that needs to go to the client tomorrow.
You have numbers for framing and concrete, but you have a sinking feeling about the HVAC number. Did you get the quote from AirCool Inc? You check your email inbox. Nothing. You check your “Sent” folder. You sent the invite last Tuesday. Did they open it? Did they download the plans? Did they decide not to bid?
You don’t know. So you pick up the phone, call them, and leave a voicemail. Then you text them.
This is the “Chasing Game,” and it is the single biggest time-suck during preconstruction for general contractors.
If you are managing $2M to $10M in annual revenue, you are likely juggling 3 to 5 active bids at once. That means managing 50+ subcontractors across different trades. Relying on Excel and your email outbox to monitor bid status is a recipe for missed coverage and blown budgets.
Here is how to fix your workflow and monitor subcontractor bid status without the headache.
Most GCs start with a “Bid Log” in Excel. It usually has columns for Trade, Company Name, Contact, and Status.
The problem isn’t the spreadsheet; the problem is that the spreadsheet is passive.
When you are monitoring bid status manually, you are reacting to information rather than managing it. You only realize you are missing a number when it’s almost too late.
To get control of your bidding, you need to move away from binary thinking (Sent vs. Received) and start tracking the engagement of your subcontractors.
A modern bid tracking system (whether it’s a sophisticated Excel macro or a dedicated tool like ours) should tell you exactly where a sub is in the pipeline:
If you send 10 invites to electricians and 3 days later the status is still “Invited” (not “Viewed”), you know immediately that your email is buried or in spam.
You can call them now, rather than waiting until the day before the deadline.
Conversely, if a sub has “Viewed” the plans 5 times but hasn’t submitted a number, you know they are interested but might be crunching numbers. A gentle nudge is all they need.
The goal of monitoring bid status is to reach Bid Leveling faster. You cannot compare apples-to-apples if you don’t have the apples yet.
By using a dedicated bidding tool, you remove the friction for your subcontractors. They shouldn’t need a password or a login to view your plans. They should receive a link, view the docs, and upload their PDF proposal.
When they do, your dashboard should update automatically:
You didn’t get into construction to send “Just checking in” emails.
When you have a system that monitors subcontractor bid status for you, you can see the health of your bid coverage in a single glance. You can see that you have 3 plumbers locked in, but zero painters. You can focus your energy on finding a painter, rather than calling the plumbers who have already submitted.
This clarity doesn’t just save you time; it makes you look more professional to your clients. When you present a budget that is backed by real, tracked, and organized sub-quotes, you build the kind of trust that wins projects.
Ready to stop chasing emails? Try a simpler way to invite subs and track their bids. No complex training required.