Award and contract

Once the winner is confirmed you inform the bidders. What happens next depends on whether your organisation uses the contract module — it is paid and not in use everywhere.

From offer to contract

A contract arises from a winning offer. It also works without a tender: existing contracts that only need monitoring can be created directly.

A contract has four states: draft, signature requested, confirmed by the supplier, declined by the supplier.

The signature

You request the signature and the supplier confirms in the portal. Confirmation is a click and is logged with a timestamp.

This is not a qualified electronic signature under ZertES or eIDAS. For most procurements that is exactly right. Where a qualified signature is required, settle it with your legal team before sending the request — it is a contractual question, not a technical one.

If the supplier declines, that is a normal step: you amend and request again.

Deadlines and deliveries

A contract carries a contract number, a value and a renewal option. Deadline monitoring sends reminders and keeps a list on the dashboard.

Those reminders are internal. The supplier is not reminded — anyone expecting that is waiting for something that will not come.

For deliveries you can record the target and actual date, acceptance, and a remark.

What you can tell a bidder

And what you cannot: the reason from the latest rejection round is visible to the supplier. Who decided internally is never visible, and there is no history across several rounds.

Internal notes stay internal, including those on the offer. Anything meant to reach the bidder goes out as a message.

If your organisation does not have the module

Then e-Request ends at the award and the contract runs your usual way. That is not an edge case; just tell your suppliers, so nobody waits for a signature request in the portal.