Tender requirements and response drafts
How AI in Achekam helps read a tender's requirements and draft response sections and CVs without claiming more than the firm can support.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa
A public-sector tender for professional services arrives as a bundle: terms of reference, a standard bidding document, special conditions, pricing schedules, returnable forms and evaluation criteria. The requirements that decide the outcome are scattered through all of it, and a single missed requirement can make an otherwise strong bid non-responsive.
AI is good at reading long documents quickly. It is also capable of writing persuasive text about experience a firm does not have, references it cannot produce and capabilities nobody approved. In a tender response that is not a style problem. A claim the firm cannot support can cost it the contract, and in public procurement it can cost far more.
Achekam's tender tools use AI for the reading and drafting, and put hard limits on what it may claim.
Requirements added only when the quoted words are found
On a tender in Achekam, AI can read the tender's documents and propose requirements: the things the firm must provide, comply with or demonstrate. Each proposed requirement comes with the exact words it relies on, quoted from the documents.
A requirement is added only when those quoted words are found in the tender's documents. If the AI paraphrases loosely, or produces something that is not in the text at all, the requirement is not added. That one rule removes the most dangerous kind of error, a requirement that sounds plausible but was never in the tender.
This step needs an AI key. Achekam's AI features run through one engine that uses the firm's own key first and the platform's key only where allowed; with no key at all, every AI feature says so and drafts nothing.
Unverified until the bid manager confirms
Every requirement the AI adds is marked unverified until the bid manager confirms it.
Confirmation is not a formality. The quote proves the words exist in the document; it does not prove the AI understood their effect. A requirement quoted from a clause about a different lot, or from an example form, may be real text but the wrong requirement. The bid manager reads each one in context and confirms or discards it.
Nor should the AI's list be treated as complete. It is a first pass. The bid manager still reads the evaluation criteria, the returnable schedule and the special conditions personally, and adds what the AI missed. Where the buyer is an organ of state, the preference part of that evaluation follows the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, the framework for preferential procurement under section 217 of the Constitution.
Drafts from approved capabilities and verified references
Once the requirements are settled, the firm drafts its response in the Response Studio. Here AI drafts a bid section only from three sources:
- the firm's approved capabilities;
- its verified references;
- the buyer's documents.
A draft that claims a capability the firm has not approved is not saved, and the same applies to a reference nobody has verified.
That puts the real work where it belongs: in maintaining the capability statements and reference list. A firm whose approved capabilities are thin will get thin drafts, which is accurate rather than a fault.
Drafts that over-claim are not saved
If a draft claims something the firm's records do not support, Achekam saves nothing; the draft is not kept. A draft that is saved is marked "ready for review".
Note what that label does and does not mean. No rule was found that blocks submitting a section nobody has reviewed. "Ready for review" is a status, not a gate. The firm's own process has to make sure a person reads every section before the bid goes in, checking tone, fit with the evaluation criteria and anything the buyer will read as a commitment.
CVs rewritten without adding facts
Tenders for professional services almost always ask for CVs of key personnel, in a layout the buyer specifies or the firm prefers. Under the tender page's Team & CV Builder, staff build a CV library and have AI rewrite each CV into the firm's layout without adding facts.
The rewritten CV can be downloaded as PDF or Word. Until a person reviews it, it carries a DRAFT stamp. The person whose CV it is should be the one who reviews it, since only they can say whether a reworded responsibility still describes what they actually did.
What the AI engine will not do
Two engine-wide rules matter for tender work. Achekam's AI engine refuses any task whose type is giving an opinion, reaching a conclusion, approving or signing, so it will not sign off a section or give a conclusion on the bid. And by default, it removes South African ID numbers from text before sending it to an AI vendor, which matters when CVs and declarations pass through it. That removal can be switched off in AI settings; most firms should leave it on.
A review checklist before lodging
- Every requirement confirmed or discarded by the bid manager, and the documents read in full for anything missed.
- Capability statements and references used by the drafts current and approved.
- Every section read by a person, regardless of its "ready for review" status.
- Each CV reviewed by its subject, and the DRAFT stamp gone.
- No commitment in the text that the delivery team has not agreed.
The decision that comes before this work is in bid or no-bid decisions; the price that sits alongside it is in pricing a bid from the rate card.
Start by bringing your capability statements and reference list up to date, because every draft the Response Studio produces can only be as good as those records.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
