Bid vs Actual
Bid vs Actual is the closeout engine that compares the original bid line items with what the project actually cost. After substantial completion it reconciles each bid line against the committed purchase orders and approved change orders and reports trade-level variance, top wins and overruns, change-order drivers and lessons for the next bid.
What is Bid vs Actual?
Bid vs Actual is the historical-learning engine that closes the loop between estimating and the field. After substantial completion, it reconciles every original bid line item against the actual purchase orders committed and the approved change orders, then produces a structured variance report: executive summary, trade-level variance table, top wins (came in under), top overruns (came in over), CO drivers grouped by reason, and specific lessons for next bid.
This is the engine that feeds the company's estimate library. Generic benchmarks are useful; your own history is better. Every closed project run through Bid vs Actual sharpens the next bid because the estimating ratios get re-anchored to real outcomes.
When should I use Bid vs Actual?
Use Bid vs Actual after substantial completion as the standard closeout review, for a quarterly portfolio review of variance patterns, in an estimating-team retro, to investigate why one trade keeps coming in over, or for an owner postmortem on a difficult project.
- Post-substantial-completion — the standard closeout-review cadence.
- Quarterly portfolio review — aggregate variance patterns across multiple closed projects.
- Estimating-team retro — pull lessons forward into the next bid.
- Trade-specific deep dive — investigate why one trade keeps coming in over.
- Owner postmortem on a difficult project — documented variance with reasons.
When variance traces to a heavy CO load, chain into Change Order Review filtered to the approved COs on the project — see which patterns drove the spread vs the original bid.
What do I upload to Bid vs Actual?
Nothing — this is a server-side aggregation engine. It reads the original bid line items (your awarded bids), the final PO log (purchase orders), and the approved change orders for the project. The variance numbers are computed from those records; there's no document upload step.
What it needs is the data already being there: the original bid line items entered, purchase orders committed and finalized, change orders marked approved. The engine is honest about gaps — if data is incomplete, the report calls it out rather than guessing at the missing rows.
How do I run Bid vs Actual?
To run Bid vs Actual, open it, confirm the project is closed, review the source preview, run the analysis, read the executive summary, walk the trade-level variance table, read the wins, overruns and CO drivers, and capture lessons for the next bid.
Open the engine
Sidebar → Engines → Bid vs Actual.
Confirm project is closed
The engine runs against post-completion data. Banner shows the project's final-billing status; if open, the result is provisional.
Review source preview
Banner shows: N bid line items, M committed procurement items, K approved COs. Gaps surface here.
Run analysis
15–30 seconds. CPM-style aggregation plus Claude-composed narrative.
Read the executive summary
Top of the result: total bid, total spent, variance percentage, and the one-line headline finding.
Walk the trade-level variance table
Every trade with bid vs actual, variance percentage, and rank. Sort by variance to find the biggest swings.
Read the wins, overruns, and CO drivers
Top wins (came in under), top overruns (came in over), CO drivers grouped by reason (scope-change / design-error / field-condition / coordination / other).
Capture lessons for next bid
The engine writes specific lessons (e.g., "Electrical estimating ratio was 12% low on this project type — raise the next bid"). Save to the company's learning library.
How do I read the Bid vs Actual results?
The result is an executive summary and a trade-level variance table, with top wins and overruns, CO drivers, a sub performance ranking and specific lessons.
Total bid, total spent, dollar variance, percentage variance, headline finding. The line for the exec brief.
Every trade with bid amount, actual amount, dollar variance, percentage variance. Sortable and color-coded by direction.
Top 5 each. The wins teach you what to lean into; the overruns teach you what to fix in the next estimate.
Approved COs grouped by reason (scope-change / design-error / field-condition / coordination / other) with the cumulative dollar impact per category.
Which subcontractors delivered to bid, which came in over. Feeds back into vendor reliability scoring for future bids.
Claude-written lessons tied to specific line items. Saves to the learning library for the next estimating cycle.
Every control, explained
Run analysisConsumes one run. 15–30 seconds.
Sort variance tableBy trade / by bid / by actual / by variance percentage / by dollar variance.
Filter by CO reasonNarrow the CO drivers section to one category — useful for design-error postmortems.
Chain to CO ReviewOpens CO Review filtered to the project's approved COs for deeper inspection of the drivers.
Chain to Procurement TrackerDrill into procurement for the cost-code level detail behind any variance.
Save lessons to libraryPersists the engine-written lessons to the company learning library, tagged with project type and trade.
Export PDFExecutive closeout variance report. Standard format for portfolio reviews.
Export XLSXRaw bid vs actual data. Trade-level table for further analysis in Excel.
Sources
- Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide (GAO-20-195G)U.S. Government Accountability OfficeThe GAO guide to producing a reliable cost estimate, with the steps of the estimating process.
- Instructions: G703-1992, Continuation SheetAIA Contract DocumentsHow the schedule of values is broken into line items and tracked for work completed, stored materials and retainage.