SpendLogic works with government primes and subs to unlock organizational savings and fix procurement compliance issues. Our software solves the top three CPSR findings: Price Analysis, Commercial Item Determinations, and Source Justifications.

In this video, we will show you how to use SpendLogic to document a competition that was awarded based on best value.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Patrick Mathern, founder of SpendLogic. We work with government primes and subs to unlock organizational savings and fix procurement compliance issues. In this short video tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use SpendLogic to document a competition that was awarded based on best value. Let’s get started. From any screen in SpendLogic, click start a new report and choose price analysis. This opens the procurement tab.

Here, we will be providing information that will be used in the header of our final report. The information on this screen is also what’s used for the search report screen. Anything you type here becomes a searchable data item. Complete each of the fields on this screen. When you get to the bottom of the screen, indicate that you wish to write a competitive report, then click next. Now you’re on the parts tab.

Much like other methods, we’re now asked to identify what parts will be included in the competition. Adding parts is simple. Begin by typing the part number in the part input box. If this part already exists in the system, you can choose it from the list. If your part doesn’t show up in the list, simply choose, create a new part. Input the part number and description then click save.

A best practice is to go to your ERP or purchasing system and copy the part number and description exactly as it’s shown there. Now, indicate the quantity that you’re buying. This should match the quantity that you included in the RFQ. You can continue this process for each part that is included in the competition. When you’re done adding parts, click next. This brings up the competition tab.

In the left hand navigation, you’ll see that we’re on the competition detail screen. On this screen, we’re providing a couple of facts about timing and then specifying the nature of the competition we’re conducting. The first two items ask if all the bidders receive RFPs and RFQs on the same date and whether they were all required to respond by the same due date.

Indicating that bidders had different timelines will require additional information in order to proceed. In this example, I’ll indicate that all RFQs and bids were released and received at the same time. Next, we need to specify the type of competition. Our choices are our lowest price, technically acceptable, and best value. Low price competitions are scored solely on price, whereas best value competitions are scored on price and other criteria that you specify.

Choose the award methodology that matches that which was included in your RFP or RFQ. For this example, I’m going to choose best value. The next question on this page regards your intent to award a purchase order to one bidder or to multiple bidders. Choosing multiple will result in a mini-competition for each part and could result in multiple awards. I’ll start with single award and then come back and specify multiple to show you the differences.

In best value price analysis, each bidder is scored in multiple categories. Each of these scores is weighted and then added together to get a total score for each bidder. The bidder with the highest total score wins. In this example, we’re going to use three categories. Scrolling down, you can see that we have the ability to identify these scoring categories and that the first one price is already identified for us.

This is because approved procurement systems must take price into consideration in any competition. We need to specify the weighting expressed as a percentage. And all of those weightings must add up to 100%. The criteria that is most important to us as buyers should be given a highest weighting. In this particular example, I’m going to use 50% for price. My next criteria is going to be delivery schedule, and for me this is worth 30%.

And last but not least, is technical ability. We have 20% left to assign so that our weights add up to 100%. Therefore, I’ll assign that last 20% here. At the bottom, SpendLogic will show you the sum of your waitings. If they don’t add up to 100%, you’re going to get an error message and won’t be able to move forward until that’s fixed.

When you’re done with this screen, click next. On the bid details page, you see a blank chart that shows the parts and quantities that were indicated on the purchase order detail screen. Remember, if you ever want to add more parts, just click that parts tab. It’s time to add bidders. Clicking add bidder brings up a new screen. Here we can add some key information about our bidder beginning with our bidder name and size classification. As you type in the name of the supplier, note that it appears at the top of this screen.

This will remain visible throughout these bid detail screens and becomes important when you have multiple bidders. Next, we’re asked whether the bidder responded with a bid or a written no bid. If no response at all was received, the bidders should not be included in these screens. You’re then required to upload a copy of the bidder’s response, whether it’s their quote or their written no bid.

Last, you can indicate whether this bid was included in the competition. If you indicate that this bid was removed for technical reasons or was outside the competitive range, additional explanation will be required. When you’re done with these steps, click next. Now we’re asked to input the actual bid. At the top of the screen, you can see which bidders quote we’re looking at as well as which part number. The quantity shown in the header is the quantity that was included in the RFP.

The first box has already been filled in for us. SpendLogic assumes that in most cases, the bidder will respond with a quantity that matches the RFP or RFQ. However, if your bidder chooses to include a different quantity, for example, if they have capacity constraints, you can input a different bid quantity here. Doing so requires additional explanation.

For now, I’ll leave it the same quantity as the RFQ. Next, we’re required to input bid amounts for recurring and non-recurring. Input the exact prices as provided by the bidder. The bid adjustment boxes would be used if your competition resulted in bids that were not directly comparable. For example, if your RFP requested pricing for widgets and one bidder included pricing for widgets plus carrying cases while the others did not, you would then use the bid adjustment to remove the cost of carrying cases.

Positive values will add scope and adjust bids upward while negative values will remove scope and adjust bids downward. If a value is added in this box, you’re going to be required to provide additional explanation. When you’re done, click next. If there are multiple parts, you’ll advance to the next part. After you’ve entered all bid data for this supplier, you’ll be taken to the scoring criteria page. Here we can see that our price, delivery schedule, and technical ability scoring categories are shown.

This is the screen where we provide scores, which will then be weighted by the percentages we input previously. All the categories are scored on a 0 to 10 scale. Let’s step through each one of those now. First, notice that the price score cannot be edited. That’s because SpendLogic automatically scores the bidders based on prices that were input. In effect, the lowest price receives the most points.

Other prices are then assigned scores based on how close or far away from the low price each bid sits. Details of these calculations will be included in the final downloaded report. Our next category is delivery schedule. Using the dropdown list, we can see possible scores ranging from 10 at the high end to 0 at the low, the middle score 5 is satisfactory. This is your baseline.

If the bidders simply met the requirements, this is the score that should be used. Improving over and above the minimum requirement would result in a score of good, while not meeting requirements would result in poor. Notice that good, satisfactory, and poor each have three possible scores. If you have three bidders and they’re all good, you can compare them to one another and score the lowest one as good minus, one as good, and the best of the three as good plus.

If you don’t need to differentiate between bidders in this way, it’s recommended that the middle value of each category eight, five or two is then used. For truly exceptional or unacceptable bids, 10 and 0 may be used. After assigning a score, you’re required to provide rationale. Explain what it is about the bid that led you to assign this score.

In this example, I’m assigning a score of eight, good, because the supplier indicated that deliveries can be made slightly sooner than requested. The goal is to be as objective as possible. This is especially important if the result is an award to other than low bidders. Do the same thing for each scoring category included. When you’re finished, click done.

Now, our chart has one bidder included. To add additional bidders, click add bidder. I’ve gone ahead and done this already and here are the results. At this point, we have in front of us the completed bid table. In green, SpendLogic shows which bidder is recommended for award. Since we chose single award on the competition details page, all quantities were awarded to one bidder. Now let’s look at a scenario where a decision has been made to award multiple bidders.

To do this, go to the competition details link in the left hand navigation. Here you can modify the award selection so that multiple awards may be made. Clicking next, you now see that our award recommendation has changed. Each bidder has been awarded a portion of the total based on best-value calculations for each part. Another SpendLogic feature is the ability to override the award.

This comes into play if you determine that you need to award multiple bidders due to dual sourcing requirements or for capacity constraints. To see this in action, click override analysis on the line item you wish to split. This brings up the override award screen, which requires you identify the quantities assigned to each bidder, as well as provide the appropriate rationale. Once you click done, you’ll see that the award has been moved to the other bidder.

You’ll also notice that the competition is shown as modified. Clicking on this link allows you to change the awardee, the rationale, or remove all modifications. Once I remove modifications and click done, you can see that it reverts back to the original award state.

Once the table reflects your intended methodology, include a short competition summary. This is especially important if the override button was used or if there are any special considerations that a reviewer would need to know. When you’re done, click next. This is our risk check screen. As with all methods, if you see a lot of red flags on this screen, it means that your report is likely to be scrutinized.

Try to minimize the number of risk checks that you see. For those that can’t be removed, make sure that your explanations are complete. Click continue. Now, we’re on the report tab. From here, you can either finalize or download the report. Remember that until a report is finalized, any updates to the VLS, which automatically take place monthly, may result in changes to your report.

Finalizing a report means it’s frozen in time and will not change. That brings us to the end of this tutorial. Thanks for watching. If you have any questions about this or any other feature in SpendLogic, go to spendlogic.com/help or email us at [email protected].