Invite tender

[Silverobama]

Hi,

The council has invited tenders for the building contract.

What does "invited tenders" mean here?

This is from Cambridge.Dictionary.com and the meaning of "tender" is:

A written or formal offer to supply goods or do a job for an agreed price.

But I still don't understand "invite tenders".

Can anyone help?

[charliedeut]

My guess is it means that the council has opened the period to accept offers to carry out the contract; it has "invited" companies to present their offers (budgets) to build whatever the contract specifies.

[BobK]

Imprimatur!

b

[Gillnetter]

My guess is it means that the council has opened the period to accept offers to carry out the contract; it has "invited" companies to present their offers (budgets) to build whatever the contract specifies.

I agree that the meaning is to invite companies to submit bids. I would argue that "budgets" do not equal "offers" in this context. Budgets are internal to a company and reflect financial decisions. Budgets are not normally made public, as would be the case in a bid.

[charliedeut]

I agree that the meaning is to invite companies to submit bids. I would argue that "budgets" do not equal "offers" in this context. Budgets are internal to a company and reflect financial decisions. Budgets are not normally made public, as would be the case in a bid.

I stand corrected. I'm not completely aware of the way public bids are handled everywhere. In Spain, one would expect at least a summary of the budget, which comes to be referred to as "buget" by the general public and by the non-specialized media. That's why I mentioned it in my post.