Evaluators read your price and your approach side by side
In a Justice Department competition decided in 2012, evaluators looked at offerors' unusually low hours and compared them to what each offeror had said about how it would do the work. They concluded the hours were "consistent with the awardees more automated approach to performing the work," and GAO denied the protest (Rust Consulting, B-406410). The low hours survived because the technical approach explained them.
That is how a good evaluation reads a price. The number on the price page is only believable if the rest of the proposal describes a job that actually costs that much. Most small contractors write the two halves in different rooms: the estimator on the spreadsheet, someone else on the narrative. The two rarely get compared until an evaluator does it.
The number on the price page is only believable if the rest of the proposal describes a job that actually costs that much.
What the rules say about realism on fixed-price work
The FAR overhaul text, like the codified FAR at 15.404-1(d), describes cost realism as checking whether cost elements are realistic for the work, reflect a clear understanding of the requirements, and are "consistent with the unique methods of performance and materials described in the offeror's technical proposal." Agencies must perform this analysis on cost-reimbursement contracts.
On competitive fixed-price contracts, the overhaul text allows it in limited situations, including exceptional cases where requirements may not be fully understood, there are quality concerns, or past experience shows proposed costs led to shortfalls. The results may feed performance risk assessments and responsibility determinations, though offered prices are not adjusted because of the analysis.
Read the evaluation section for the words realism, reasonableness and risk. If realism is in the solicitation, expect a real comparison. Even where it is absent, an evaluator who notices that your staffing does not match your price will usually score the concern somewhere.
A mismatch can cost more than points
In Arrington Dixon & Associates (B-409981, 2014), the solicitation let the agency reject a quote that was unrealistically high or low, provided an unrealistic labor mix, or reflected "a failure to comprehend the complexity and risks of the work to be performed." Language like that turns a spreadsheet error into a question about whether you understand the job.
On a price-decided award, the technical volume is typically evaluated for acceptability only, so inconsistency usually shows up as a technical failure or a responsibility concern. Either way, the cost of the mismatch comes well before anyone reaches your price.
Where the two volumes most often disagree
| Technical volume says | Price volume must show | Common gap |
|---|---|---|
| Staffing plan and shifts | Hours by labor category for each period | Fewer priced hours than the plan requires, or a supervisor named in the plan but not priced |
| Equipment and method | Equipment, rental durations, materials and quantities | A crane or lift in the method with no line, or a shorter rental than the schedule requires |
| Schedule and phasing | Duration of general conditions and escalation over the full period | A longer schedule in the narrative than the price carries |
| Assumptions and exclusions | The same scope, restated in the same words | A price assumption that quietly limits the work statement |
Hours against the staffing plan
Start with arithmetic an evaluator can do in a minute. Say the technical volume describes 14 full-time people for a year, which is 29,120 hours at 2,080 hours each. If the price carries 24,000 hours, the volumes disagree by 5,120 hours, and the evaluator now has a question about one of them.
There may be a good answer. Some positions are part time, some work is seasonal, some is automated, as in the Rust decision. Then the explanation belongs in the technical volume, stated plainly, so nobody has to guess. Evaluators can work with a difference that is explained. An unexplained difference reads as an error or a plan to underperform.
Check each named key person too. If your staffing plan gives a project manager full time and the price carries half, your commitment and your cost are different things on the page.
Equipment and materials against the method
On construction work, the narrative usually describes how the building goes up, and the price has to carry what that method requires. A method that depends on a tower crane needs a crane line, a foundation for the crane if one is required, an operator and a rental period that matches the schedule.
Walk the narrative with the estimator and highlight every piece of equipment and every material it names. Then find each on the bid sheet. Anything highlighted with no matching line is either a pricing error or a promise you did not intend to make. Do the same with subcontractor scope: a narrative that says the concrete is self-performed should not be priced from a concrete subcontractor's quote.
Schedule against escalation and general conditions
If the narrative says 18 months and the general conditions are priced for 14, the proposal contradicts itself on the single most visible number in a construction bid. Check the end date, the phasing, and the months of supervision, trailers and utilities priced against them. On a multi-year service contract, check that option-year escalation is applied in the periods the narrative covers, and only to the costs it should touch.
Assumptions against the work statement
Assumptions are where proposals quietly change the deal. A price note that says "based on single-shift access" reads differently when the technical volume promises work around the tenant's schedule and the performance work statement requires both. Compare every assumption and exclusion in the price volume with the work statement, line by line.
An assumption that contradicts a requirement can be read as an exception to the solicitation's terms, and that can be a serious problem for your proposal. If you truly need the assumption, ask about it in the question period so the answer lands in an amendment. If you do not need it, cut it.
One list of numbers keeps the volumes together
Disagreement between volumes almost always comes from drift. A number changes on Tuesday, the estimator updates the spreadsheet, and the narrative keeps saying what it said on Monday. Fix that at the source with one short list both writers use: headcount by position, hours by category, schedule duration, major equipment and rental periods, key people and their percentage of time, and the amendment you are working from.
When a number changes, the list changes first, then whoever owns each volume updates it the same day. Set a date after which numbers only change with the owner's approval, and write the version of the list on the front page of each draft. It takes ten minutes to set up, and it does most of the consistency work before the final review starts.
Unbalanced pricing is a separate risk
The FAR overhaul text at 15.404-6, and the codified FAR at 15.404-1(g), describe unbalanced pricing as existing when, despite an acceptable total evaluated price, the price of one or more line items is significantly over or understated. The greatest risks arise when startup or mobilization is a separate line, when base and option quantities are separate lines, or when the evaluated price is built from estimated quantities on an indefinite-delivery contract.
Contracting officers must analyze offers with separately priced line items, and an offer may be rejected if the imbalance poses an unacceptable risk to the government. On sealed bids, the overhaul text similarly lets the contracting officer reject a bid whose line items are materially unbalanced.
Front-loading your mobilization line to help cash flow is the classic version of this. Price each line at what it actually costs, and take your cash-flow concern to the payment terms.
A consistency check to run before you file
Assign one person who did not write either volume, and give them a day. Have them work through this list with both volumes open, and hand them the evaluation criteria too, so they read both volumes the way the evaluator will.
- Hours: total priced hours by category equals what the staffing plan requires, by period
- People: every named person in the technical volume appears in the price at the stated level of commitment
- Equipment: every item named in the method appears on the bid sheet, with a duration matching the schedule
- Schedule: general conditions, escalation and option periods cover the full duration the narrative describes
- Scope: every assumption and exclusion is compared with the work statement and the latest amendment
- Subcontractors: each trade the narrative says you will subcontract has a line that reflects a current quote
- Line items: no line carries cost that belongs in another
Mistakes that make volumes disagree
- Pricing from an old staffing plan after the technical team changed it
- Revising the schedule in the narrative after the estimator has finished
- Updating the price for an amendment and leaving the technical volume on the earlier version
- A narrative that promises extras nobody priced, written to make the proposal sound stronger
Frequently asked questions
Only if the solicitation provides for one or the contracting officer uses the limited allowance in the FAR text. Read the evaluation section. Inconsistent numbers can still hurt you under technical or risk factors either way.
No. Follow the instructions on what belongs in each volume, since many solicitations forbid price in the technical volume. The volumes need to describe the same job, and the check is done by comparing them.
Yes, in the technical volume, with the reason and the evidence: the method, the tool or the experience that lets you do the work with fewer hours. Evaluators in the Rust decision accepted exactly that.
One person with authority to send a volume back, and preferably someone who wrote neither. Plan a full day for it after the volumes are drafted.