Do you have the best vendors for your property?
Whether it’s for cleaning, landscaping, repaving, or anything else, you rely on vendors to keep your property in top shape. But, your vendors might do shoddy work. Or, take forever to get things done. Your vendors might even be overcharging you for their services.
If you don’t have the right vendors, your property could be in worse shape than you think. This could lead to costly problems down the road. Or, your vendors could be causing a negative tenant experience – leading to higher tenant turn over. And, if you’re overpaying, you have higher expenses that reduce the profitability of your property.
How can you find the right vendors who make your property more profitable – instead of causing issues?
By automating the bid process. With tools to make choosing, comparing, and keeping records of vendors easy, RFP automation can help you choose the right vendor every time.
Wondering how bid automation can help you hire the right vendor? Here’s a checklist of ways RFP automation can help your vendor selection.
1. Choose from a Nationwide Vendor Network
The first way RFP automation can help you choose the right vendor is with a verified vendor database.
When looking for a new vendor, your options are using vendors you’ve had in the past. Or, asking other property managers for their recommendations. You might even search online for the right vendor.
With these methods, you’ll likely find a vendor. But, you have a small pool to choose from. So, you might find a vendor with the right price – but inferior work. Or, you might find the perfect vendor who’s out of your price range.
At the end of this process, you’re stuck with a subpar vendor after wasting hours on vendor searches.
How can spend less time selecting vendors to get bids from – while getting better results?
Use RFP automation software with a trusted vendor database. When selecting vendors from this network, you only see vendors with a proven track record, great reviews, and who fit your criteria. That way, you know any vendor you choose will do quality work at your property.
And, with a vendor database, you only have to look in one place to find vendors. So, you don’t have to waste hours searching for vendors online, in person, or over the phone. Instead, you can find great vendors in minutes with the trusted vendor database.
To find the right vendor with bid automation software, you first need to use a trusted, nationwide vendor database.
2. Use Comparison Tools
Another important feature RFP automation software should have to help you find the right vendor is a side-by-side comparison.
Once you receive proposals from interested vendors, you need to choose one to hire. But, each proposal can have different information. Or, different layouts could make it difficult to find the right information. So, you have to spend hours sorting through the proposals to make a choice.
While you could manually turn the proposals into a spreadsheet, it’s time-consuming. And, when you have to enter the data yourself, it’s easy to miss-enter crucial information. So, you might think a vendor has a great price due to your spreadsheet. But, the actual proposal has a vastly different quote.
An easier way to compare bids is with RFP automation software. When vendors submit proposals, the software can automatically turn it into a comparison table. So, you can see how each vendor stacks up against the others – without putting in hours to create a spreadsheet.
And, with side-by-side comparisons, it’s easy to choose the right vendor for your property. It’s effortless to compare vendors in areas like price, materials, and whether they clean up. So, you can make an informed decision to choose the best vendor – with the right price and quality for your property.
When automating the competitive bidding process, an important tool to look for is automated comparison – which lets you choose the best vendor with little effort.
3. Consolidate Vendor Details
Another important feature RFP automation should have to help you hire the right vendor is historic record-keeping of vendor details.
During the bid process, it’s easy to lose track of vendor conversations, proposals, and other crucial info. Between calls, emails, texts, and more, it’s hard to keep track of everything you need.
And, after you choose a vendor, you have to file all your conversations, contracts, and supporting evidence for your decision. Property owners or other management might ask you to justify your vendor decision. If you don’t have everything filed properly, you’ll struggle to find evidence to support your choice.
But, it can be difficult to keep track of everything so you can find it months or years later.
Instead of scrambling to keep up with vendor communication during the process and file supporting documents after your choice, you can use bid automation software. With the software, all your vendor conversations, proposals, and more are aggregated in one platform. So, you only need to check one place to stay on top of the vendor selection process.
And, with automation, your vendor details are stored in the cloud. That means you can access the info you need to support your choice from anywhere and on any device. So, you’ll always be prepared to back up your decisions – instead of frantically searching filing cabinets for what you need.
Along with a vendor database and side-by-side comparison, your bid automation software should keep a record of vendor details.
Wrapping It Up
Having the right vendors is essential to having a well-run building. While great vendors are important, it’s often hard to find the right one for your property. Between price, track record, time to complete the job, and more, it can seem like there isn’t a vendor that meets all your requirements.
But, when you need a new vendor, you scour the same sources – like google and recommendations – in hopes of finding what you need. This can waste hours of your valuable time. And, once you get bids from vendors, it can be challenging to compare them to make the right choice. Plus, it’s difficult to keep records of every vendor detail.
An easier way to hire the right vendor is with RFP automation. You can select a vendor from a trusted, nationwide network. And, you can easily compare vendors with an automated comparison table. Plus, the software automatically stores all vendor conversations and details. So, you can find them later if you need to support your vendor selection.
That way, you can find a vendor that saves your property thousands – with less time on your part.
Looking for bid management software? Consider using Prism. With Prism’s Bid Management module, you can choose vendors from a database, easily compare bids, access historical vendor data, and more.
