A cleaning tender is won or lost in the evaluation, not the invitation. Five responses arrive, each formatted differently, each claiming the same certifications, and the easiest thing to compare is the total price. That is also the comparison most likely to pick the operator who underestimated your scope.
This guide is the process we would want a facility manager to run on our own response: a compliance gate first, then the scope, the site, the price line by line, the workforce, the evidence, the references and the transition plan. It works for a single office and for a multi-site portfolio.
If you have not issued the tender yet, start with our free commercial cleaning tender template. Its scope tables, compliance prerequisites and evaluation weighting are what this process scores against.
Before the responses arrive: fix the rules
Write down how you will score before you open a single response. Our template weights compliance and certifications at 25%, workforce model and training at 20%, operational capability at 20%, pricing transparency at 20% and references and sector fit at 15%, with a minimum compliance score before a bid goes any further. Change the weights if your site needs it, but set them first: weights decided after reading the prices tend to follow the prices.
Agree who scores what. The person who will manage the contract day to day should score the scope and the walkthrough, procurement or finance should score the price schedule, and whoever owns safety or infection control should read the compliance pack.
Step 1: run the compliance gate, pass or fail
A certificate attached to a response is a claim. The register is the proof. Check each one at its source before anything else is scored.
For reference, this is what a checkable response looks like. QCC's ISO 9001 certificate is A188RA002QMS and its ISO 45001 certificate is A188RA002SMS, both issued by Certifi International, and our QLD Labour Hire Licence is LHL-01505-Y7Y8S. Each can be checked without asking us.
- ·ISO 9001, 45001 and 14001: the certificate number, the standard and its version, the company name, the scope and the expiry date, checked on the certification body's own register. Then check that the certification body is accredited by JAS-ANZ, the accreditation body for Australia and New Zealand.
- ·Queensland Labour Hire Licence: supplying cleaners to your site is labour hire under Queensland law, and the provider must hold a licence. Search the Queensland Government's public register by company name or licence number.
- ·Contractor prequalification such as Cm3: ask for the ID and confirm it on the platform.
- ·Insurance: a current Certificate of Currency for public liability and workers' compensation, in the name of the company that will sign the contract.
Step 2: check each response against your scope, line by line
Put your scope schedule beside each response and tick it off zone by zone: every area, every frequency, every periodic task. The gaps are rarely in the daily clean. They are in the periodic work: carpet extraction, hard-floor strip and seal, high dusting, internal and external glass.
Read the exclusions as carefully as the inclusions. A price that leaves out consumables, periodic work or after-hours access is a lower number, not a lower cost.
Step 3: walk the site with every shortlisted bidder
A price written without seeing the site is a guess. Give each shortlisted bidder the same walkthrough and watch what they do with it. A serious bidder measures, photographs, asks about hazards, plant, security and access windows, and asks what has gone wrong with the current arrangement.
At QCC the walkthrough is where the quote is built: we measure the site, photograph it and confirm hazards, plant and access before a line is priced, and the walkthrough is free. If a bidder declines to visit a site of any size, that belongs in the score.
Step 4: read the price line by line, not the total
Ask every bidder for the same breakdown, per site or zone: labour, cleaning chemicals and supplies, equipment, supervision and overhead, and margin. With the lines side by side, the differences explain themselves. One bidder has fewer hours on site, another has left out supervision, a third has priced the periodic work separately.
Then read the terms that move the price after signing: how the rate is indexed each year, and how a change of scope is quoted. Our template asks for indexation tied to CPI and the Cleaning Services Award, and for every variation to be quoted line by line.
Step 5: test the workforce model
Ask who will actually clean your site. Direct employees, labour hire and subcontractors are all legal models, but they behave differently: who trains the cleaner, who supervises them, and who you call when someone does not turn up.
Ask what training each cleaner completes before a first shift, which checks they hold where your site needs them (a Blue Card for schools and childcare in Queensland, Working with Vulnerable People checks in aged care), and who supervises the site and how often. QCC's cleaners are QCC employees, trained through our TrainingUP programme in Pinkenba before their first shift.
Step 6: ask for proof of work, not a promise of it
Every response will say the cleaning is checked. Ask how you will see it: a sample of the report you would receive, the way attendance is recorded, how an issue is logged and closed, and what an auditor can be given at the end of a quarter.
QCC's answer is Boomerang: every visit is GPS-attended and photo-verified, issues are logged with a timestamp, and the record exports for an audit. Ask every bidder to show theirs with a real example rather than a brochure.
Step 7: call the references you choose
Call the clients named in the response, not only the referees the bidder offers. Ask how long the contract has run, how problems were raised and fixed, and whether the price moved after signing. Then ask the bidder about the last contract that ended, and why.
Step 8: score the transition plan
The first weeks of a new contract are where most of the risk sits. Ask each finalist how they will start: who the account manager is, how the crew is chosen and inducted to your site, where the scope will be written down, and how reporting is set up before the first clean.
QCC mobilises in that order: a crew assigned and inducted to the site, the scope written into a Field Operations Manual, Boomerang set up and an account manager named.
Red flags that should stop a bid
- ·A certificate that cannot be found on the certification body's register, or a certification body that is not accredited.
- ·A lump-sum price with no breakdown, or a breakdown that does not add up to the total.
- ·No site walkthrough before pricing.
- ·Subcontracted labour that the response does not disclose.
- ·References that cannot be reached, or only referees the bidder chose.
- ·Evidence of work that is described but never shown.
A good evaluation is mostly checking: the registers, the scope lines, the site and the people. Run in this order, the compliance gate removes the bids that should never have been scored, and the price is read last, when you know what each number buys.
If you are preparing a tender, the commercial cleaning tender template gives you the scope tables and weighting to score against, and our guide on how to choose a commercial cleaning company covers the questions to ask before you shortlist. If you would like QCC to respond, request a walkthrough and a line-item quote.
