On each one
The price, the scope answered, and when they can do it
Each proposal prices the lines your request listed, in the company’s own figures and its own words about how it would work.
How a request works
One unit, one trade, one date. Walked all the way through.
A request is a document you write once and publish. It says what the work is, what cover you require, and when you need answers. Companies that already clear your cover read it and send priced proposals back. You pick one, and the file stays under the property afterwards.
What the document prints
In this order
1The property and the unitWhich property, which unit, and how to get in. One unit per request, so what comes back is priced for that unit rather than averaged across a building.
2Scope of workWhat you want done, in your own words. Two walls or the whole unit, ceilings or not, and whose paint it is.
3Services requestedThe trade, so only companies cleared for it can answer.
4Insurance requirementsThe cover you require, printed on the request itself, so nobody prices work they could not be awarded.
5SubmissionThe date answers are due, and it is set from the move-in rather than from today.
6AttachmentsThe walk photographs, the paint schedule, the last invoice for the same unit — attached as files, printed as a list.
It prints and it downloads, so the copy in the owner's file and the copy a company prices from are the same sheet.
The rest of this page follows one of them the whole way: a unit came back last Friday, it needs painting before the new resident’s move-in, and nobody has a painter who can start.
Step one
You type the address and describe the unit. That is the whole setup.
There is nothing to set up first and nothing to draw. Typing the address is what opens the account, and the request goes out from it the same afternoon.
Why nothing has to be drawn for this one
Painting a unit is not priced by how much land the property sits on, so the rule answers optional and the request publishes from the address. Grounds work is the trade that would change that answer, and it has a page of its own below.
Write the scope the way you would tell a painter
Whole unit or the two walls the last resident repainted. Ceilings or not. Whose paint. Where the key is. A scope somebody can price without ringing you is a scope that comes back priced rather than hedged.
What a painting company has already cleared
Before it may answer you
- General liabilityVerified, with its expiration date
- Workers’ compensationVerified, with its expiration date
No state issues a painting licence, so there is no third card to require and this page does not invent one.
Step two, and it is the one that decides everything else
The date on the request is not the day the work happens. It is set backwards from the day the unit has to be rent-ready.
A turn does not run against a budget year or a meeting. It runs against a person with a signed lease and a truck booked, and every date on the request is measured back from theirs.
- 01
The move-in is fixed
It is the one date on the whole turn that somebody else owns, and it is what rent-ready means at this property. Everything else on this page is arranged behind it.
- 02
Then the work has to finish, with the paint dry and the unit walked
A finish date, not a start date. Ask for the finish and let each company tell you what start it needs to hit it — that is the answer you actually want to compare.
- 03
Then answers are due, far enough back to read them and award
This is the date that goes on the request. Set it too close to the move-in and you have made an auction where the only variable is who is free, which is how a turn gets expensive. The request will not let you set it any closer than 6 days out, so a turn against next week's move-in still needs that much room built in.
- 04
Then you publish, today
Everything above is arithmetic once the move-in is known, and there is nothing to prepare before you can do it. The request goes out the afternoon the unit comes back.
What the date does not do is chase anybody for you. It is printed on the request, it is what a company answers against, and a proposal that arrives after it arrives late and looks late.
Step three
It goes to verified companies in that trade. It is not a public notice.
Nobody wanders in off a search result. A company sees your request because it holds the trade and its paperwork already cleared the cover you asked for.
The contact line on the request
Printed exactly like this
Issued through VendoRFP. Vendors send their proposals back on this site. No phone number or email address is published with this RFP.
Which is the answer to the question every manager asks about publishing anything: no, your phone does not start ringing.
What a company sees
The scope, the unit, the cover you require and the date. Enough to price the work and to decide whether to.
What it does not see
Anyone else’s figures. Proposals are not visible to the companies writing them, which is what makes the number you get the company’s own price rather than a reaction to somebody else’s.
Step four
Priced answers, side by side, in the order they arrived.
They land in your account rather than across four inboxes in four layouts, in the order they arrived. You read them beside each other and award the one you want.
Already true of all of them
Everybody answering cleared your cover
A company short of a mandatory limit is stopped before it can send you anything and told the shortfall in dollars, so no afternoon goes on a proposal you could not have awarded.
The order they sit in
Arrival order, and that is the whole sort
Whichever you pick, the contract is between your company and theirs, and the decision reads the way it would if the three of them were on your desk.
Step five, and it is the one you will use again
You award it, the work happens, and the whole thing files itself under the property.
Filed under the property rather than under the company, because the next person asking about this unit will ask about the unit.
The turn after this one starts here
The property, its boundary and this file are already on record, so the next request on this same unit starts from a known property instead of a blank one — you are not re-typing the address or re-drawing anything you have already confirmed.
The owner’s question, answered from the file
Who painted it, what the request asked for, what they charged, and the certificate on file, with the date it runs out.
The month, for whoever keeps the books
Run the export over the period you choose and hand over the file their software imports: Detailed CSV, General journal CSV (double-entry), QuickBooks Online CSV, QuickBooks Desktop IIF, Xero CSV.
What is under the unit afterwards
Kept together
- The request, as publishedWith its date
- Every proposal that answered itWon or not
- The award and the contractBoth kept
- The visit record and the invoiceFiled as they happen
Leaving takes it with you: the exports are the ones you have been running all along, so there is no last step to perform.