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Running an RFP by email and spreadsheet vs Pactwise Source
Email and spreadsheets can carry a fair RFP, but they leave every rule to the people using them. Pactwise Source, the AI RFP Studio, builds those rules into the system: pricing stays sealed until the deadline, every vendor gets the same deadline and the same answers, evaluators score blind, and every decision lands on an append-only record.
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RFP software vs spreadsheets, side by side
The table compares the same RFP run two ways. The left column describes what email and a shared spreadsheet do and do not enforce on their own; a disciplined team can do much of it by hand. The right column describes what Pactwise Source enforces, with the status the product site gives each capability.
| Step | Email and spreadsheets | Pactwise Source |
|---|---|---|
| When bids can be opened | Bids arrive as email attachments. Anyone with access to the inbox can open a pricing file the moment it lands; keeping it closed until the deadline depends on people choosing not to look. | Live todayEach pricing submission is envelope-encrypted with its own key, which the database never holds. The buyer sees that a bid exists, not its contents. A scheduled job opens every envelope at once after the deadline plus grace — not the buyer, not an admin, not a database dump can open one earlier. |
| Deadline handling | The deadline is a date in the document. Granting one vendor extra time takes a single reply, and telling every other vendor about a change is a separate, manual step. | Live todayOne shared deadline: there is no per-vendor deadline anywhere in the schema. After publish a deadline can only move later, every change is recorded with a reason, and every vendor is notified at once. Lateness is frozen at submission time. |
| Package check before release | A checklist, if the team keeps one. Nothing in a document or spreadsheet stops a package going out with weights that do not add up or no pricing schedule. | Live todayPublishing is a database check, not a checklist: contact details, Q&A cutoff spacing, the minimum response window, criteria weights that sum to 100 and a pricing schedule are enforced before an RFP can go out, with a warning when fewer than three vendors are lined up to invite. |
| Vendor Q&A and addenda | Questions land in individual inboxes. Leveling depends on someone collecting them, removing the asker’s name and sending every answer and change to every vendor. | Live todayVendors ask privately; answers publish to everyone, anonymized. Changes after publish go out only as versioned addenda that every vendor must acknowledge, and an addendum inside the notice window forces a deadline extension or a written override. |
| Submission receipt | The record is an email timestamp and whatever file arrived. Whether a file changed later, or arrived late, is reconstructed from mail headers and file history. | Live todayUploads are stamped with the server clock and a server-computed checksum, then frozen, and each file passes a default-deny structural inspection before a buyer can open it. Late uploads are accepted only with a written reason and are flagged as late. |
| Evaluator independence | Scores often go into one shared spreadsheet, where an evaluator can see colleagues’ numbers before entering their own. Nothing records whether they did. | Live todayBlind evaluation: each evaluator sees only their own scores until the evaluation locks, and outlying scores are flagged at lock time. |
| Conflict-of-interest attestation | A signed form, collected by email and filed separately. Nothing ties it to the scoresheet, so a score can be entered before the form comes back. | Live todayEach evaluator attests to having no conflict of interest before scoring, and the database rejects any score from an evaluator who has not attested. |
| Award approval | An approval email or a signature on a memo. Whether scoring was final, every question answered and the approver someone other than the author is checked by hand. | Live todayAn award needs a locked evaluation, a written justification, every vendor question answered, every abnormal-bid flag acknowledged, and an approver who is not the author. |
| Audit trail and protest file | The record is spread across inboxes, a shared drive and spreadsheet version history, and anyone with edit access can change it. A protest means assembling it after the fact. | Live todayAn append-only audit log with one write path, each event hash-chained to the one before, and every file read logged. One export compiles the timeline, addenda, Q&A, submission metadata, locked scores, attestations and approvals into a single hashed protest file. |
| Vendor isolation | Depends on addressing. A visible copy list or one reply-all can show a vendor who else is bidding, or what they asked. | Live todayDeny-by-default row security on every table, tested on every merge. Vendors join by single-use invitation links and work on a separate portal host with its own sessions; a vendor identity can never become a buyer user. |
| The role of AI | None defined. If someone drafts or summarizes with a general-purpose AI tool, that use sits outside the procurement record. | Prep Studio · In progressPrep Studio (“Draft with AI”) drafts the scope, requirements, weighted criteria and pricing schedule; code validates the draft and a person approves each piece. AI never scores, ranks, or recommends an award. |
What email and spreadsheets do well
Email and spreadsheets cost nothing extra, every vendor already has both, and there is nothing to set up. For a small, informal quote where price is the only question and nothing is likely to be challenged, they can be enough.
The gap shows up when the stakes rise. A formal RFP depends on things the tools cannot guarantee: that no one looked at pricing early, that every vendor got the same deadline and the same answers, that evaluators scored independently, and that the record was not edited afterward. With email and spreadsheets, each of those is a promise. If an award is protested, the team has to show it kept every promise, using records that were never designed to prove it.
Pactwise Source turns those promises into constraints. Some moves are simply not possible in it: giving one vendor a different deadline, shortening a deadline after publish, opening a sealed bid early, messaging one vendor about the package in private, or writing a free-text regret letter (regret letters come from templates). The terms are defined in the procurement glossary: sealed bid, blind evaluation, publish gate, procurement audit trail and bid protest.
How to run a sealed-bid RFP online
Whatever tool you use, a sealed-bid RFP follows the same steps. Where Pactwise Source enforces a step, the step says how.
- Finish the package before it goes out. Scope, requirements, weighted criteria and a pricing schedule. In Source, the publish gate blocks release until criteria weights sum to 100, a pricing schedule exists and the response window meets the minimum.
- Invite vendors individually. In Source, each vendor gets a single-use invitation link that only an explicit click consumes, so a corporate link scanner cannot burn it.
- Set one deadline for everyone. If it moves, it moves for every vendor at once. In Source, a deadline can only be extended after publish, with a recorded reason.
- Level the questions. Take questions privately, publish anonymized answers to every vendor, and issue changes as addenda each vendor acknowledges.
- Collect bids where they stay sealed. In Source, uploads are stamped with the server clock and a checksum, then frozen, and pricing is encrypted until the deadline passes.
- Open every bid at once. In Source, a scheduled job reveals all pricing together after the deadline plus grace.
- Evaluate blind. Each evaluator attests to no conflict of interest, then scores alone until the evaluation locks.
- Approve the award with a second person. In Source, the approver cannot be the author, and the award needs a written justification.
- Keep the record. In Source, every step is on a hash-chained audit log, and one export produces the protest file.
Where AI fits, and where it never does
Prep Studio · In progress
A spreadsheet has no opinion about your RFP. Pactwise Source uses AI in one place: Prep Studio, “Draft with AI” in the buyer console, drafts the package. AI-assisted intake that drafts the scope, requirements matrix, weighted criteria and pricing schedule, reads its own draft as a hostile bidder would, and hands every artifact to you for approval. Built and verified against recorded model runs; live-model drafting switches on with the model key.
AI never scores, ranks, or recommends an award.
That is a structural rule, not a setting. Deadlines, sealing and the reveal, the publish gate, access control and the audit log are deterministic code, and scores are human acts. More on the drafting workflow is on the AI RFP Studio page.
Where to go next
- See how the studio drafts, validates and approves a package on the AI RFP Studio page.
- Compare plans on the pricing page.
- Read how Source fits a public body’s process on the public-sector page, or a growing company’s on the mid-market page.
- Look up any term in the procurement glossary.
Frequently asked questions
Is a spreadsheet enough to run an RFP?
A spreadsheet can hold criteria and scores, and email can carry the documents, so a careful team can run a fair RFP that way. What the tools do not do is enforce the process: nothing keeps pricing closed until the deadline, keeps one evaluator from seeing another’s scores, or records who changed what. RFP software like Pactwise Source makes those rules part of the system.
How do you run a sealed-bid RFP online?
Publish a complete package with one deadline for every vendor, invite vendors to a portal rather than an inbox, keep pricing encrypted until the deadline passes, open every bid at the same moment, have evaluators attest to no conflict of interest and score independently, and have a second person approve the award. Keep every step on an append-only record.
Can anyone open a bid early in Pactwise Source?
No. Each pricing submission is envelope-encrypted with its own data key, wrapped by a key the database never holds. Not the buyer, not an admin, not a database dump. A scheduled job opens every envelope at once after the deadline plus grace, and a deadline can only be extended after publish, never shortened.
Does Pactwise Source use AI to score proposals?
No. AI never scores, ranks, or recommends an award. AI drafting in Prep Studio (“Draft with AI”) is marked In progress; scores are entered by human evaluators who have attested that they have no conflict of interest.
What do we have if an award is protested?
A protest file export. One export compiles the timeline, addenda and acknowledgments, published Q&A, submission metadata, locked scores, attestations and approvals into a single hashed document, drawn from an append-only audit log.
