Submission date

At the submission date , opening date or simply during the submission , the offers received as part of a public or restricted invitation to tender (e.g. for a wood submission or a tender for construction works) are opened and read.

Bids can be submitted by bidders in a sealed envelope on the submission date up to the opening time (e.g. 11:30 a.m.) and may not be opened by the client in advance. In addition to the responsible employees of the client (there must be at least two), only bidders or their authorized representatives may be present at the submission.

At the opening, the negotiator first checks whether the envelopes are intact. Then the envelopes are opened, the offers are removed and the offer price, name and place of residence of the entrepreneur are read out loud and entered in the minutes. It must be noted whether suggestions for changes or ancillary offers have also been submitted. These are not read out. All opened offers are then punched with a special star punching machine to prevent individual notes from being added or changed afterwards.

At the opening date, a transcript is made in which the results and any objections are recorded. A form for recording can be found in the federal procurement manual. After submitting the application, bidders are to be informed immediately of the names of the bidders as well as the read out and recalculated final amounts of the bids and the number of their ancillary bids after the mathematical check. The minutes may not be published.

Special features of e-procurement

A similar procedure takes place in the case of electronic tendering (e-tendering) , which has been introduced some years ago . Instead of opening envelopes, the first time an electronic offer is opened, the encrypted offer is decrypted. The opening of tenders for formal tenders must be based on the four-eyes principle. Multiple authentication is used for electronic allocation. The submission date is documented in the "minutes" and signed by the offer opener.

Special features of VOL tenders

In the case of tenders for services that do not fall under the procurement and contract regulations for construction work (VOB) or the procurement regulations for freelance services (VOF) (e.g. the delivery of tables and chairs for a school), no bidders may be present during the submission date be. The opening of the offers is carried out and documented jointly by at least two representatives of the client. Bidders are not allowed. At least the name and address of the bidders, the final amounts of their offers and other information relating to the price, whether and by whom secondary offers have been submitted, are recorded. The offers and their attachments as well as the documentation on the opening of the offer must be carefully kept and treated confidentially even after the award procedure has been completed (see § 14 VOL / A).