Attract the Right Vendors: Adding Commodity Codes to your Bid
Adding Commodity Codes to your agency's account is the easiest way to get linked with potential vendors from all kinds of industries. Think of a Commodity Code kind of like a tag, when you set a tag on your Bid, and a vendor has a matching tag, they are alerted to the opportunity.
Currently there are two ways to add Commodity Codes to your bids and quotes. You can either create pre-built lists before hand, these are handy if you do a lot of bids targeted at the same industry. Or you can generate new lists every time you create a bid, this method is more flexible and can be modified per bid.
It's important to keep in mind that regardless of what method you are using, taking the time to ensure you have the more relevant and accuracte commodity codes for your agency is vital.
Using the keyword search function is going to be the best method to find accurate codes. So if you are a city trying to get your roads repaved, you could search "Paving" or "Roads" to find relevant commodity codes.
Once you know what commodity codes you'll be using, you can determine what method of setting them up you'd like to use. Here's a breakdown of both.
Pre-Built Lists
You can build a list of commodity codes so that you can easily apply the same list to bids without having to compile the list everytime. Here's how to set those up
1. Click on the drop-down menu below your username in the upper right corner and select “Account.”
2. Select the tab that says “Broadcast List.”
3. Click “Add List” in the bottom right corner.
4. Choose the NIGP commodity codes that most broadly describe what you are looking for to ensure
you reach the most relevant suppliers to your project or products.
5. Review the list of suppliers that match the commodity codes you selected. If this list of suppliers meets your needs, click “Save” to use at a later time or click “Go Back” to add more or remove commodity codes.
6. When entering subsequent solicitations, you may access your bid list through “Load Pre-Built List”.
Generating Lists
If you prefer to select the commodity codes as you create bids then you can use the Generate List option during bid creation. In step 5 of the bid creation process you will build your broadcast list. Once you click on "Generate New List" you will go through the same process as you did to set up pre-built lists except instead of saving that list into the system, it will only be applied to this bid.
If you'd like to see this process in detail, check out the video below.
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