Bidsmith for NYC Procurement

Open bidsmithnyc.com and sign in (top right). First-time users create an account with their work email.

From the dashboard, click + New RFQ. Fill in:

• Project title.The work's name — e.g. "Bronx River Houses Masonry Restoration, Phase 2". Don't paste a URL.
• Agency. NYCHA, DDC, SCA, DOT, etc.
• Procurement method. RFQ for two-step qualifications, CSB for low-bid, RFP for scored.
• Estimate, schedule, M/WBE goal, bonding, insurance.Fill what you know. Anything missing renders as "[ORIGINATOR: SUPPLY THIS]" in the generated RFQ so you can fix it later.
• Drawings & specs. Drag and drop PDFs (up to 30 MB each), or paste public Drive / Dropbox / Box / S3 URLs.

Click Create.

Bidsmith reads your inputs and the uploaded drawings, then generates a complete NYC-standard RFQ in Markdown plus a procurement-flow diagram. This takes 30–90 seconds.

The generated RFQ appears in the Draft RFQ panel. Read every word.The AI is honest about placeholders (it never invents dollar values, dates, or certifications), but boilerplate sections may need editing for your specific agency's conventions. Edit inline in the textarea, then click Approve & publish.

Top-right corner: Find responders. Bidsmith ranks vendors in your database against this RFQ — bonding capacity, M/WBE status, trade alignment, past performance. Vendors with red "blocked" badges fail a hard requirement and can't be invited.

Check the box next to each vendor you want to invite (high scorers are pre-checked). The right column shows whyeach got their score, so you can override the model where it's wrong about your project. Click Notify selected at the bottom of the page. Each vendor gets an email with a private link to their draft response.

Back on the RFQ page, you can see which invited firms have opened their draft, run pre-flights, and completed sections. Bids close on whatever Bids due date you set during intake.

You'll receive an email from Bidsmith with the subject line "Bid invitation: [project title]". Click Open your draft responsein the email. Check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive within a minute.

Critical: sign in with the exact emailthe invitation was sent to. Bidsmith verifies email ownership before granting access to the draft. If you sign up with a different address, you'll see a "Wrong account" page — sign out and try again with the right email.

The workspace has four tabs across the top. Start with Eligibility. Click Run check. Bidsmith compares your firm's profile (bonding, certifications, VENDEX, past performance) against the RFQ's hard requirements. Outcomes:

• Eligible — you can bid.
• Conditional — you can bid, but one or more requirements are borderline (e.g. bonding capacity close to the threshold). Read the notes.
• Ineligible — you fail a hard requirement (e.g. missing required certification). The notes tell you what to fix.

Click Generate draft. AI writes a complete five-section bid response using your firm profile and past performance: Project Understanding, Approach, Schedule, Key Personnel, Past Performance. 30–60 seconds.

Read every section. Edit each one to add specifics, fix language, or remove anything the AI got wrong. Click Approve sectionon each. You'll see 1/5 approved → 5/5 approved as you go.

The AI will never invent past projects, awards, or people your firm doesn't actually have. If a section feels thin, that means your firm profile is thin for this scope — you can edit the section to add real detail, or acknowledge the gap honestly.

If the RFQ requires M/WBE participation, click Build plan. AI proposes certified sub commitments — names, cert numbers, scopes, dollar allocations — that meet or exceed the goal. Review and edit. For each proposed sub, AI also drafts a commitment-letter request you can send to that firm to lock in their participation.

Click Run pre-flight. Bidsmith checks every hard requirement: bonding, insurance limits, M/WBE plan against goal, VENDEX status, mandatory walkthrough attendance, federal SAM.gov exclusion list, NYC debarment list. Each check is pass / fail / warn. Every check must pass before you can download.

Once all three gates are green — narrative approved, compliance passing, M/WBE plan built — the Download submission package button activates. Click it. You get a .zip containing:

• bid-package.md — your combined narrative + M/WBE plan + compliance attestation
• opportunity-rfq.md — the originator's approved RFQ for reference
• attachments/ — every file you attached to the response
• manifest.json — machine-readable inventory of what's included

Open PASSPort in a new tab and sign in with your NYC procurement account. Upload the zip following the agency's instructions in the RFQ. Bidsmith does not submit for you — by design.Auto-submission to a city procurement portal is a liability nightmare, and you wouldn't want it anyway.