What is a Bid Fund?
A Bid Fund is a fixed amount of funds bound to a fixed start and end date that can be
used to offset expenses within a deal. When bid funds are applied to a proposal, it acts like additional revenue directly to the proposal top line revenue. This revenue is commissionable. The Bid Fund amount DOES NOT show up as an Item in E-Automate. (This is by design per CFO requirements).
How do users apply Bid Funds to a proposal?
Bid Funds can only be applied to a proposal by completing a Bid Fund Request. A Bid Fund Request will get routed to the default assigned user on the Core and can be approved by authorized users configured for the Core. After a request has been approved, the Bid Fund amount will appear as a negative expense on the Expense page.
Creating a Bid Fund
From the Admin Page, click on Bid Fund Overview
Add New or Edit an existing Bid Fund
Start Date: The first date available to use Bid Funds
End Date: The last date available to use Bid Funds
Total Fund Amount: The maximum funds available across all deals within the time period
Running Total: A real-time calculation of Bid Funds used across all deals
Max Support %: The % of the deal funding amount that can be used as bid fund. (Example, 10% on a 100k deal means the max bid fund amount is 100k x 10% = 10k)
Region: The Regions this Bid Fund applies to
Configuring Authorized Users to Approve Bid Fund Requests
Sales users cannot directly add Bid Fund support to a Proposal. Instead, they must use a Request process for an authorized user to add the Bid Fund on the deal. You must configure the users that are permitted to add Bid Funds to a deal on the Core configuration page.
Admin Tools > Core setup
Add Authorized Bid Fund Approvers
Configuring Default Assignment for Bid Fund Requests
Admin Tools > Core setup
Reporting on Bid Fund Usage
The Bid Fund Overview page will only show Admins usage of the bid fund at a high level through the "Running Total" value.
This value is the sum of all approved bid fund requests on all proposals. This value does not account for the status of a proposal. For example, an approved bid fund request could be on a proposal that was never submitted.
For granular and most accurate data, admins should rely on self-service exports that will provide line item level detail across all proposal. This report will have the bid fund amount as well as the stage of the proposal for a more accurate representation of bid fund usage.