Standard Forms

Standard contracts, standard descriptions of procurement items, non-disclosure agreements, proposal evaluation criteria checklists, or standardized versions of all parts of the needed bid documents are included in standard forms. Organizations that perform substantial amounts of procurement can have many of these documents standardized. Buyer and seller organizations performing intellectual property transactions ensure that non-disclosure agreements are approved and accepted before disclosing any project specific intellectual property information to other party.

Procurement Documents

These documents are used to seek proposals from perspective sellers. A term such as proposal is generally used when other considerations, such as technical skills or technical approach, are paramount and terms such as bid, tender, or quotation is generally used when the seller selection decision will be based on price (as when buying commercial or standard items). However, the terms are often used interchangeably and care is taken not to make unwarranted assumptions about the implications of the term used. Common names for different types of procurement documents include invitation for bid, request for proposal, request for quotation, tender notice, invitation for negotiation, and contractor initial response.