Every addendum read against the bid you already priced, with each change listed for your estimator.

Addenda land between the bid set and the bid date, sometimes several in one week. One can add or delete readers and cameras, swap a specified product or manufacturer, reissue sheets, move the bid date or the question deadline, or replace the bid form. Someone has to read it against the drawings and spec the estimate came from, find every line it touches, and make sure the bid acknowledges it.

In the proof of concept, AI does that reading from copies: it compares each addendum, item by item and sheet by sheet, with the original Division 28 drawings, the specifications and your estimate, and lists every change that touches a count, a part, a labor line, an exclusion or a date, each tied to its addendum item. The estimate, the bid form and the price stay as your team left them.

The same section number can mean another system. MasterFormat files addenda themselves under 00 91 13, but the Division 28 numbers an addendum cites depend on the edition the spec follows. CSI's 2011 list puts Fire Detection and Alarm at 28 31 00, Intrusion Detection at 28 16 00 and Access Control at 28 13 00. Its 2016 list moves intrusion to 28 31 00 and fire alarm to 28 46 00, gives 28 13 00 to Access Control Software and Database Management, and turns 28 23 00 from Video Surveillance into Video Management System. So an item revising Section 28 31 00 is read against the project manual's own table of contents, and the draft prints each section's title beside its number.

An addendum's layout tells you where to look. Wisconsin's Division of Facilities Development has its architects split each addendum into bidding requirements, contract conditions, specifications and drawings, citing spec items by section, page and line and drawing items by sheet number and the plan, schedule or detail changed. A card access addendum published by the Dane County, Wisconsin public works department shows how much one can carry: an alternate for two more proximity readers at named doors, electric strikes limited to one maker's listed models with no substitutes, control cable changed from 20 AWG to 22 AWG stranded, j-hooks allowed above ceilings, a new bid form, and the whole drawing set reissued because 14 of its 27 sheets changed and one was added. When a full set comes back, the draft compares it sheet by sheet, so an unchanged sheet is never counted twice.

Dates that addenda set or move. AIA's A701-2018 Instructions to Bidders make a change binding only when it comes by addendum, want clarification requests at least seven days before bids and substitution requests at least ten, and count a substitution as approved only once an addendum says so. Oregon's model rule for public improvement solicitations, OAR 137-049-0250, bars an addendum less than 72 hours before closing unless it also extends the closing, and Wisconsin's state facility instructions ask for 7 days or a 7-day extension. Each change list carries the bid date and the question and substitution deadlines as that addendum states them.

Acknowledgment is part of a responsive bid. The federal sealed-bid provision, FAR 52.214-3, leaves every term an amendment doesn't touch in force and has bidders acknowledge each amendment by signing and returning it, by entering its number and date on the bid form, by letter, or by fax or email where allowed, received by the time and place set for bids. Under FAR 14.405, a missing acknowledgment passes as a minor informality only if the bid shows the amendment was received or its effect on price, quantity, quality or delivery is negligible. Oregon's rule also wants written acknowledgment of every addendum with the offer. The draft lists each addendum number and date for the person who signs; whether a missed one can be cured is for the owner's rules and your counsel.

What your reviewer will watch: devices added or deleted against your counts, product changes against your price book, cable, mounting and power changes that move labor, items shifted to or from the electrician or the door hardware supplier, standards an addendum adds, such as UL 681, Installation and Classification of Burglar and Holdup Alarm Systems, which sorts systems by type and sets the extent of protection, or NFPA 72, the National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, and any bid form that replaces the one your team filled in.

After your reviewer's yes, the same check runs for about 30 days on addenda as they reach your live bids.

Your estimator decides every change to the estimate, and whoever signs the bid acknowledges each addendum. The draft only lists what changed.

The fixed price for the live job is agreed before you sign. Any job after it is priced separately, and monthly support begins when the job goes live.