Upload the quotes that came back for a package and get one comparison table: contractor, headline price, what is included, what is explicitly excluded, the programme, the payment terms, and the validity date. Choosing on price alone stops being the only option you have time for.
The app embedded on this page is the Application Tracker Board, a real Taskade Genesis build you can move cards through right now. It moves submitted items through review stages, which is the bid pipeline without the comparison. Click "Use this app" to clone it in about ten seconds, add the scope, exclusion, and price columns you want lined up in Table view, then put the upload form and the reading step in front of it.
Concretely, a Packages Project holds one row per work package and a Quotes Project holds one row per submitted quote, kept as connected records so a package with six bidders is still one package. A published upload page takes the package reference, the contractor name, and a File field. The Convert File to Text step reads whatever arrives, which is essential in construction where a quote may be a designed PDF, a spreadsheet, or a photograph of a handwritten estimate. An Ask Agent step returns contractor, quote reference, quote date, validity period, headline price, currency, whether tax is included, a scope summary, an itemized list of inclusions, an explicit list of exclusions, programme or duration, payment terms, and any stated assumptions. Exclusions are the field that decides most bids, so they are asked for separately rather than left buried in a scope paragraph.
The comparison reads however you need to present it:
- Table view for the side-by-side comparison with price and exclusions
- Board view to move quotes through Received, Clarified, Shortlisted, and Awarded
- Calendar view for quote validity dates and decision deadlines
- Plus List, Mind Map, Gantt, and Org Chart across the 7 project views
Automations keep a tender moving. With Taskade automations, a quote arriving notifies the estimator, a quote about to expire is flagged before the validity lapses, and a package with fewer than three returns is chased before the deadline. Across 100+ bidirectional integrations, Gmail pulls quotes in while Slack and Google Sheets push the comparison out. The AI agents inside the app carry 34 built-in tools with persistent memory, so an agent can list the differences between two bids in plain language for a client meeting.
Issue a scope template with the enquiry so bidders price the same thing. The comparison table can only line up what the quotes actually contain, and a shared scope removes most of the differences that are really just different assumptions. Ask bidders to state exclusions explicitly, then extract those as their own list, since exclusions decide more awards than headline price does. Keep the clarification questions in the app next to the quote rather than in email, so the record of what was agreed sits with the document it changed. After award, that same record is what the contract is built from.
Clone the app, invite your estimating team, and the packages, the quotes, and the comparison rules are yours.
Read the reading step in Convert File to Text, the pattern in Build a Document Intake App, and structuring options in Structured Output. Browse live builds in the Community Gallery, explore automations, or start from the templates library. Pair this with Match Purchase Orders to the Invoices That Arrive once a package is awarded, and Track Certificates of Insurance Before They Expire before anyone starts on site.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can it compare quotes that price different scopes?
It surfaces the difference rather than pretending it away. Inclusions and exclusions are extracted as separate lists, so the table shows that one bidder excluded scaffolding and another priced it. The estimator still makes the call, with the evidence in front of them.
What if a quote arrives as a spreadsheet?
Spreadsheets are read directly as text by the same step, as are CSV, DOCX, and typed PDFs. A photographed handwritten estimate is read off the image. One step covers all of them.
Does it normalize prices that include or exclude tax?
Ask for the headline price, the currency, and a separate field for whether tax is included. Then normalize in a later step you control, so the comparison is explicit rather than an assumption buried inside an extraction.
Can it flag missing information?
Yes. Anything not stated in the quote comes back blank, and a blank in a required column is the clarification question you send back to the contractor. That list writes itself.
How do I stop a quote expiring unnoticed?
Store validity as a real date and let an automation flag it a week before it lapses. A tender that has to be re-run because three quotes expired is the avoidable version of this problem.
Are the original quotes retained?
Yes. Every file attaches to its quote row and lands in your workspace Media tab, which matters when a contractor later disputes what they priced.
Can a client see the comparison?
On Business plans and above you can publish a signed-in view on your own domain showing only what you choose to share. App sign-in through App Users ties each view to a named person.
Can we keep a history of revised quotes?
Yes. Upload each revision as its own quote row connected to the same package and contractor, so the comparison shows the current price while the history stays intact. That trail matters when a contractor later refers to an earlier figure.
