Tracking Subcontractor Bids for GCs

It is 2:00 PM on a Thursday. You have a bid due to a client tomorrow morning. You open your “Bids Received” folder and realize you have zero numbers for HVAC and only one partial bid for drywall.

You start frantically calling your HVAC subs. “I never saw the email,” says one. “I thought that project was next month,” says another.

This is the “Bid Scramble.” It happens to almost every General Contractor in the $1M–$15M revenue range. You are too big to keep it all in your head, but maybe you haven’t adopted a heavy enterprise system like Procore yet.

Instead, you rely on the “Frankenstein Method”: a combination of Outlook folders, a whiteboard in the office, and an Excel spreadsheet that hasn’t been updated since Tuesday.

There is a better way to track subcontractor bids. It doesn’t require complex training, and it doesn’t require enterprise software.

Why Excel Fails at Bid Tracking

Most GCs start tracking bids in Excel. It works fine when you are doing one kitchen remodel at a time. But once you are bidding two custom homes and a commercial renovation simultaneously, Excel breaks down.

The problem is that Excel is static, but bidding is dynamic.

• No Status Updates: Excel can’t tell you if a subcontractor actually opened your email.
• Version Control: If a sub sends a revised quote, you have to manually update the cell and save the new PDF. If you forget, you bid the job with old numbers.
• The “Search” Nightmare: When a sub calls to ask a question about the plans, do you have to search through three different email threads to find what they are looking at?

The Solution: A Dedicated Bid Tracker

To scale your preconstruction process without scaling your stress, you need a dedicated system for Invitation to Bid (ITB) tracking.

This isn’t about automating the human relationship out of construction. It’s about automating the administrative clutter so you can actually talk to your subs about the work.

Here is what a modern bid tracking workflow looks like:

1. Centralized Invitations

Instead of BCC’ing 20 subs from your personal email, you send invites through a platform.

• The Benefit: You can select all your plumbers at once and send them the specific plans they need.

2. The “Read Receipt”

This is the most underrated feature in construction software. You need to know—instantly—who has viewed the project and who hasn’t.

• The Benefit: If you see that 3 of your Electricians haven’t even opened the invite by Wednesday, you know exactly who to call. No more wasted voicemails.

3. One Place for PDFs

When the bids start rolling in, they shouldn’t live in your inbox. A bid tracking tool automatically associates the incoming PDF proposal with the correct line item in your budget.

• The Benefit: When you are ready to level the bids, you click “Plumbing” and see all three proposals side-by-side.

How to Switch (Without the Headache)

If you are worried that “software” means “months of implementation,” don’t be. The modern wave of construction tools is built for speed.

You don’t need to import your entire historical database to start. Just pick your next project.

1. Create the Budget: Set up your cost codes (Demolition, Concrete, Framing, etc.).
2. Add Your Subs: add the email addresses of the subs you want to invite for each line item.
3. Send: Click send and watch the status board populate.

Stop Chasing, Start Building

Tracking subcontractor bids shouldn’t feel like herding cats. By moving off the whiteboard and into a simple digital tracker, you protect your margins and look more professional to your subcontractors.

Ready to organize your bid process? Our platform is designed specifically for GCs who need a simple, powerful alternative to the big enterprise tools.