Before you sign the subcontract: did your bid's exclusions survive into the scope?
The mechanical contractor's project manager receives the subcontract late on Friday. Its scope schedule describes a complete system, while the bid excluded controls wiring and roof curbs. The attached quote is present, but nobody has resolved the conflicting descriptions.
Compare each bid exclusion and assumption with the proposed subcontract, then resolve every mismatch before the authorized signature. Identify wording that preserves, changes or conflicts with the priced basis, and have the commercial reviewer assess its effect. Attaching the bid is not a substitute for checking the full agreement. The aim is an explicitly understood scope and price, rather than an assumption that a missing exclusion either survives or has disappeared automatically.
Put the two scopes side by side
- Confirm the bid version. Collect the quotation, clarifications, accepted revisions and negotiation record. Identify the basis used for the final price. A superseded quote may contain exclusions the team already agreed to change.
- Make a comparison list. Give each inclusion, exclusion and assumption its own line, with the bid reference and corresponding subcontract wording. Mark preserved, changed, omitted or conflicting language. Avoid deciding the legal effect of a broad clause from its heading alone.
- Read beyond the scope schedule. Flag general descriptions, incorporation references and document-order provisions for the authorized commercial or legal reviewer. Record the precise conflict. Do not treat an email discussion as conclusive when the proposed written terms still differ.
- Choose a commercial response for each mismatch. Seek clarified wording, offer a supported additional price or knowingly accept the obligation through the company's authority process. Explain effects on timing and resources as well as money. Keep unsettled items visible rather than hiding them in a general contingency.
- Obtain the agreed revision. Ask for a clean reissued schedule or other form the parties' advisers accept. Check that the revision removes the conflict and appears in the final signature version. A marked-up discussion copy is not necessarily that version.
- Brief the project team. Give estimating, purchasing and the foreman the accepted scope and known changes to the bid basis. Retain the comparison and approval record so the crew does not continue planning around an exclusion the company agreed to absorb.
Common mistakes
- Assuming an attached quote settles every conflicting term.
- Checking the negotiated markup instead of the final clean version.
- Signing now because the omitted item can supposedly become a change later.
Action list
Close the signature comparison
- Current bid and negotiated basis.
- Each exclusion matched to proposed wording.
- Conflicts identified for the reviewer.
- Scope, price and timing decisions approved.
- Final signature version checked.
- Accepted changes briefed to the crew.
Check your understanding
The quotation is attached, but the subcontract describes an excluded item as included. Can you assume the quotation controls?
