What this is for
During a live tender the buyer often issues changes, answers to supplier questions and corrections to the pack. These are called clarifications or addenda. Missing one can mean answering the wrong question or using an old word count, so Velstrian Bid keeps them together where you read the rest of the tender.
Where they live
A clarification answer is a buyer issued change to the tender pack, the same idea as an addendum. For that reason both sit together on the Tender documents screen of a bid, in a section called Changes from the buyer. There is no separate clarifications page any more. An old bookmark or exported link that pointed at a clarifications page now sends you straight to that section, so nothing you saved earlier breaks.
Step by step
- Open the bid, then its Tender tab, which opens the Tender documents screen.
- Go to the Changes from the buyer section.
- Review the buyer changes waiting at the top first, and use the version comparison to see what changed between two versions of a document. Below it, the clarification log holds the questions asked and the answers the buyer gave.
- When a change affects a question, update your answer and your compliance checklist for that question.
What happens next
Your drafted answers and your compliance matrix should always reflect the most recent buyer change. Treat a new clarification as a prompt to recheck the rows it touches before you move on.
Why it is kept in one place
Clarifications and addenda used to sit on a page of their own. They now live with the Tender documents because they are the same thing as the pack itself, a set of instructions from the buyer, and reading them apart from the pack made it easy to answer against an out of date version. Keeping them together means the latest wording and the latest rules are always in the same place, which lowers the chance of a mistake that could cost you the bid.
Common problems
You expected a clarifications tab and cannot find one: it was folded into the Tender documents, in Changes from the buyer, on purpose. You cannot add or remove a change: who can write to this section depends on your role, so if the controls are not shown, your role does not hold that permission. A change seems to contradict the original pack: the newest buyer change always wins, so work from the most recent entry and update the affected answers and checklist rows straight away.