Proposal compliance checklist

Don't lose on a missed requirement

The compliance screen is the first cut. A federal evaluator can set a proposal aside when a shall statement in the solicitation never gets an answer. RFPTriage builds the RFP compliance matrix, lines your draft up beside each requirement, and leaves Pass, Fail, and close to a person.

Try it free on your next bid

2 opportunities free, no card

Book a demo

Get through the compliance screen

Before anyone argues about which proposal is better, someone checks whether yours does what the solicitation told you to do. Section L, Section M, and the performance work statement are full of shall, will, and must. A material one that your volume never addresses is a reason to find the proposal unacceptable.

That reading is done by people. This is not a claim that agencies run a model to throw bids out, and it is not a claim that software can tell you the proposal is compliant. Avoiding proposal disqualification starts with a complete list of those statements and a draft that actually speaks to each one.

A checklist you type by hand is easy to shorten

The usual proposal compliance checklist is a spreadsheet. Someone reads the package and copies requirements into rows. It is honest work, and it fails in a familiar way: the PWS is long, an instruction sits in an attachment, and the person building the sheet is also writing the response. A requirement that never becomes a row never gets an answer.

An amendment makes the same hole again. A page limit, a staffing sentence, or a delivery date moves, and part of the team is still writing to the previous list. The risk is not a weak adjective. The risk is a shall that is absent from the volume the evaluator has.

An RFP compliance matrix, then your decision

RFPTriage does the listing and the lineup. You decide whether the draft meets the requirement.

  1. 1

    Extract the shall statements

    Paste a SAM.gov link or upload the solicitation, the PWS, and the attachments. RFPTriage proposes a row for each requirement it finds, with the section reference and the page it came from. You correct a row that is wrong, and you add a row the extract missed. The matrix is the checklist. It is not a verdict.

  2. 2

    Put the draft beside the requirement

    Write the proposal in your own tools, then upload the draft. Each requirement sits next to the passage from that file, with the draft page when the file has pages. Words that disappeared since the previous draft are struck through. If nothing in the draft lines up, the row says "No matching text found in this draft." That is the only automatic signal.

  3. 3

    You mark Pass or Fail

    A person marks Pass or Fail per row. Pass closes the row. Fail keeps it open. If a later draft changes that text, the row reopens automatically for re-review. Only a person can close a row. Nothing in the upload decides that the writing is good enough, and an upload never closes a row.

What this software will not tell you

  • It does not score coverage, and it does not label a draft covered, partial, or missing.
  • It does not judge the writing, and it does not decide that a row has passed.
  • It does not write the proposal. The draft stays in Word, Google Docs, or whatever you already use.
  • It does not close a row because a draft was uploaded. Pass closes the row. If a later draft changes that text, the row reopens automatically for re-review. Only a person can close a row.

Put the next solicitation on a checklist you can finish

Open a notice, get the matrix, upload a draft, and mark each row yourself. The first two opportunities are free.

Try it free on your next bid Request a demo

2 opportunities free, no card

Proposal compliance checklist to avoid disqualification | RFPTriage