Across your bid · Stage 4
Finalise and submit: every document the buyer asked for, ready to send
The end of a bid is more than answers. James, SEQUESTO's AI bid agent, finalises the response, fills the buyer's own files, gathers the certificates and attachments the buyer asked for, and prepares the submission package, checked and ready to upload.
Good bids lose points in the last stretch, so SEQUESTO gives it its own stage and its own checks, from the final response to one zip ready to upload.
Before / With SEQUESTO
Before
- Answers are pasted into the buyer's file by hand. Certificates are found in old folders, some out of date. Files are renamed and zipped one by one at midnight. The final check is a skim.
With SEQUESTO
- The response is exported in your template, the buyer's files are filled in place, the attachments are gathered from your Knowledge Hub, and the package is grouped and named the buyer's way. A coverage check runs on what you will submit. You download one zip.
LAST DAY
Why the last day of a bid goes wrong
The answers are written.
01
Copied by hand
Someone copies 300 answers into the buyer's workbook by hand, or exports them from a tool and spends the evening fixing tables, merged cells and formatting. A dropdown gets overwritten. A row is pasted one line too low.
02
Old certificates, forgotten annexes
Someone else hunts for this year's ISO certificate and finds last year's. The files are renamed one by one to match the buyer's checklist, and an annex is forgotten.
03
No time to check
Nobody checks whether the final file still answers every requirement, because there is no time left.
04
Its own stage
The last stretch is where good bids lose points. SEQUESTO treats it as its own stage, with its own checks.
RESPONSE
1. Finalise the response
James turns the drafts into the final response documents: the technical response, the executive summary, the cover letter.
Your company template
James exports the finished response to Word or PDF in your company template, with your styles, headers and logo, so nobody spends the last evening on formatting.
BUYER'S FILES
2. Fill the buyer's own files
SEQUESTO fills the buyer's most complex forms in their own file, not only questionnaires: Word and PDF forms with tables, checkboxes and tick-boxes, flat PDFs with drawn boxes, locked Excel sheets and PowerPoint templates. You get the same file back, filled: same layout, same tabs, same dropdowns.
01
Excel
Answers go into the unlocked answer cells of protected sheets. Dropdown answers are picked from the buyer's own list. Formulas are kept and recalculated.
02
Word
Tables, content controls, legacy form fields and checkboxes. Styles, numbering, headers and footers are kept.
03
PDF
Fillable forms and flat PDFs with drawn boxes and tick-boxes.
For the full list of formats, see Fills any file the buyer sends.
ATTACHMENTS
3. Gather the documents the buyer asks for
Every tender comes with a list of attachments: quality and environmental certificates, insurance certificates, financial statements, CVs, references, signed declarations.
01
Latest version found
James reads the buyer's list, finds the latest version of each document in your Knowledge Hub, and tells you what is missing.
02
No more hunting
No more hunting through folders the night before the deadline.
SUBMISSION
4. Prepare the submission
James groups the documents the way the buyer asks: per envelope or lot, in the buyer's order, named to match the buyer's checklist.
One zip, ready to upload
Download the whole package as one zip, ready to upload to the buyer's portal or send by e-mail.
FINAL CHECK
Checked before it leaves
Every filled file is checked before it's handed back. A workbook that lost any row is refused, not returned. A Word file passes a structural check before saving. Fields that cannot be placed are reported, not guessed, so you can fix them in minutes instead of discovering them after upload.
01
Final coverage check
The final coverage check runs on the documents you will submit. Before a bid is marked complete, James checks every requirement against the finished document and grades it as compliant, partial, missing or needing clarification. A mention is not an answer, and James may not call the bid complete while anything is partial, missing or awaiting a decision. Leftover placeholders like "[TBD]" are caught too.
02
Fill the files
Ask James to finalise the response and fill the buyer's files with the final answers.
03
Attachments
Ask him to gather the attachments on the buyer's list.
04
Placement and coverage
Review the placement report, the coverage check and the list of missing documents.
05
Submit the package
Download the submission package as one zip and upload it.
GERMAN FORM
Example: a German Lieferantenselbstauskunft
A German manufacturer asks every supplier for a Lieferantenselbstauskunft: a 14-page Word form with content controls, Ja/Nein checkboxes, tables with merged cells and the buyer's header on every page. Alongside it come an Excel price sheet with locked cells and a list of attachments: ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certificates, proof of liability insurance and the last annual report.
01
James fills and gathers
James fills the Word form in place. Checkboxes are ticked, tables filled, the buyer's header and numbering kept. The price sheet answers go into the unlocked cells only. Two fields in an annex table have no clear answer cell, so they are reported, not guessed. James finds both ISO certificates and the annual report in the Knowledge Hub, and reports that the insurance certificate is missing. The coverage check marks one certification question as "requires internal confirmation".
02
One zip, in the buyer's order
Your quality manager confirms it and uploads the insurance certificate. James groups the six files in the buyer's order, named as in the buyer's checklist, and the team downloads one zip, ready to upload.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. SEQUESTO fills the buyer's most complex forms in their own file, not only questionnaires: Word and PDF forms with tables, checkboxes and tick-boxes, flat PDFs with drawn boxes, locked Excel sheets and PowerPoint templates. Layout, tabs, dropdowns, styles, headers and footers stay as the buyer made them. Excel formulas are kept and recalculated.
Yes. James reads the buyer's list of attachments, finds the latest version of each document in your Knowledge Hub, and tells you what is missing, so nothing is forgotten on the last day.
Yes. James groups the documents the way the buyer asks, per envelope or lot and named to match the buyer's checklist, and you download the whole package as one zip.
It is reported, not guessed. You get a list of fields that did not land and the reason, for example no clear answer cell. You can then place those answers yourself or adjust the instruction. A workbook that lost any row is refused rather than returned.
Run the coverage check on it. Before a bid is marked complete, James checks every requirement against the finished document and grades it as compliant, partial, missing or needing clarification. The check runs on the filled original file, treats a mention as not an answer and catches leftover placeholders like "[TBD]".
Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx), PDF and PowerPoint templates. PDF covers fillable forms and flat PDFs with drawn boxes. The full detail, including the 13 languages recognised in Excel column headers, is on the form-filling page.
Yes. A tender often needs a Word form, an Excel price sheet and a PDF declaration. Each is filled in its own original format, and the coverage check can run on each deliverable before you mark the bid complete.