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Short guides for the tasks people ask about most. Terms are explained in the glossary. Questions? Write to hello@rfplift.com.
Build a budget from an RFP
From an uploaded RFP to an Excel budget, step by step.
- Open Roster and add the people who might work on proposals, including subconsultants. Enter each person's direct rate and percentages. The billing rate is worked out for you.
- Open Proposals and choose "Start from an RFP PDF". Choose the PDF and select "Upload and read". Reading takes one to three minutes and you can watch its progress.
- Open the Checklist tab. Compare each item with the RFP page it cites and confirm it. Dates, times and dollar amounts ask for a second confirmation. Confirming a key fact such as the due date, the not-to-exceed budget or the duration saves it to the proposal.
- Open the Budget tab. Set the start date, the duration in months and, if the RFP states one, the not-to-exceed budget. Choose the escalation settings (see the escalation guide).
- Under Proposal staff, use "Add from roster" and "Add to proposal" for each person on this proposal. Each gets a copy of their current billing rate that you can edit for this proposal only.
- Add tasks. On the Checklist tab, "Create budget tasks from RFP" turns the RFP's scope tasks into budget tasks after you review a preview. Or choose "Add phase" and "Add task to" a phase and type the tasks yourself.
- Enter hours for each person on each task. Totals, escalation and the not-to-exceed check update as you type.
- Add other direct costs with "Add cost", and tie each one to a task if you want it counted there.
- Choose the export format, then "Export to Excel". Billing rate format shows one rate per person. Cost build-up shows how each rate is made.
- Check every number and requirement against the RFP and its addenda before you submit. Extracted information can be wrong, and the agency's documents are the authority.
More detail: Billing rate and cost build-up
Billing rate: Shows each person's single, all-inclusive hourly rate times their hours. Use this for most local RFPs, including ones asking for personnel, hours and hourly rates.
Cost build-up: Shows how each rate is built: direct labor, fringe, overhead, G&A if used, and fee. Use it only when the RFP asks for direct salary, an overhead or indirect rate, or profit or fee as separate items, which is common on federal and federally funded work.
Restore or re-link tasks with "Create budget tasks from RFP"
Bring back a deleted task, avoid duplicates and match your tasks to the RFP's.
Reads the scope tasks listed for this RFP and shows what it would do with each one before anything changes. An RFP task that one of your budget tasks is already linked to is recognized and left alone, even after you renumber. If a task on your budget has the same number or a similar name as an RFP task, you can link the two instead of adding a copy. Any other RFP task can be added as a new budget task with the RFP's name, number and deliverables. Untick a task to skip it. Nothing is saved until you confirm. It also brings back a budget task you deleted, with the RFP's name, number and deliverables but not its hours.
- Open the Checklist tab and select "Create budget tasks from RFP".
- Read the preview. Each RFP task says "Will be added", "Already linked to your task" followed by its name, or "Looks like your task" followed by its name when a task you already have shares its number or has a similar name.
- For a task that looks like one of yours, choose to link it instead of adding a copy. Untick any RFP task you want to skip.
- Select the confirm button. Nothing changes until you do. Added tasks keep the RFP's task number and a link to the scope item.
- To restore a task you deleted, run the same command. It adds the task again with the RFP's name, number and deliverables. Its hours are not restored, so enter them again.
To match a task by hand, open the Budget tab and use that task's "Matches RFP task" menu. Choose an RFP task to link it, or choose none to remove the link. If the task still has the name "New task" or no deliverables, choosing an RFP task also fills in the name and deliverables from the RFP. If that would replace text you typed, you are asked first, and nothing is replaced unless you tick it.
Move tasks and subtasks
Change a task's phase, move a subtask under another task, and undo a move.
- To move a task to another phase, drag it onto that phase, or open its "Move to phase..." menu. The menu works by keyboard and on a phone. Its subtasks go with it.
- If the new phase prices hours at different rates, you see each person's rate and the task total before and after, and nothing is saved until you confirm. If the rates are the same, the task moves straight away.
- To move a subtask under another task, open its "Move to task..." menu and choose the task, or drag the subtask onto the task. The task can be in the same phase or another one.
- To turn a subtask into a task, choose "Make this a task". It stays in the same phase, right after its former task.
- To turn a task into a subtask, open its menu and choose "Make this a subtask of..." and pick the task. This works for a task that has no subtasks of its own.
- After a move, a delete or a renumber, select "Undo". It stays for 15 seconds, one action at a time.
Hours and dates sit on tasks that have no subtasks. If the task you move something under already has hours or dates, they move into a new first subtask called "New subtask", so the total does not change.
A task that becomes a subtask loses its RFP link and RFP number, because subtasks cannot carry them. You are told before this happens.
Task numbers on screen change only when you renumber (see the next guide).
Renumber tasks
Choose a numbering style and renumber with a preview.
- On the Budget tab, find Numbering under the grid. Choose "Task numbers" (tasks 1, 2, 3 across the proposal and subtasks 1.1, 1.2) or "Phase-based" (1.1, 1.2, 2.1, with subtasks 1.1.1).
- Select "Renumber...". A preview lists the old and new number of each task. If the RFP itself repeats a number, you see a warning.
- Confirm to save the new numbers, or close the preview to leave things as they are.
- Select "Undo" within 15 seconds to restore the previous numbers exactly.
Tasks matched to an RFP task keep the RFP's number. Your own tasks take the next free numbers in screen order, skipping numbers the RFP's tasks and their subtasks use.
Use the timeline
Enter task dates by month, space tasks out, and export the timeline.
- Open the Timeline tab. Each task or subtask has a Start box and a "Months (duration)" box. Enter the month a task starts and how many months it lasts. The end month is worked out.
- An empty Start box shows a suggested month in gray: the phase's start for a task, or the start of the other subtasks for a subtask. If you enter only a duration, the suggested start is saved with it. A start alone waits for a duration.
- To remove a task's dates, choose "Clear dates", or empty the Start or Months box. The task then shows "Dates not set".
- To place several undated tasks in a row, use "Schedule in sequence" on the phase row. Choose how many months each task lasts. You see a preview first, and "Undo" stays for 15 seconds. Tasks that already have dates are never changed.
- Choose how months are labeled: Month 1, 2, 3 (counted from the proposal start date) or calendar months such as Jan 2027.
- Add a due month to a deliverable if you want it marked on the timeline.
- Read any amber warnings, for example a task that ends after the project. They never stop you from saving or exporting.
- Select "Export to Excel" for the workbook, opened on its Timeline sheet, or "Download timeline (Word)" for a separate Word file.
More detail: Task dates
Enter the month a task starts and how many months it lasts; the end month is worked out for you. A task with subtasks shows the span from its earliest subtask start to its latest subtask end, so enter dates on the subtasks. A task with no dates stays marked "Dates not set" and is never given its phase's dates.
More detail: Schedule in sequence
Lines up this phase's tasks that have no dates, one after another in task order, starting at the phase start. You choose how many months each one lasts. Tasks that already have dates are never changed. You see a preview first, and can undo it for a short while afterwards.
More detail: Month labels
How months are labelled on the Timeline tab and in the Excel and Word timelines. Month 1, 2, 3 counts from the month your proposal starts (Month 1 is the month that contains the start date). Calendar months show the month and year, such as Jan 2027. The choice is saved with this proposal.
Set escalation (basis and timing)
Choose when rates rise and which date decides a task's rate year.
Escalation is the yearly raise built into a multi-year budget, so work done in later years is billed at higher rates. Year 1 uses each person's billing rate. Each later year raises it by the escalation % per year, compounded (3% gives 103% in Year 2 and 106.09% in Year 3), rounded to the cent. Other direct costs never escalate. Subconsultants escalate the same way as your own staff, and the subconsultant markup is added to their escalated labor.
- On the Budget tab, enter the escalation percentage per year. Leave it at 0 for no raise.
- Choose the Escalation basis: Contract anniversary, Calendar year, Fiscal year or No escalation. Check the RFP or the agency's cost instructions first, because they usually say which to use. For Fiscal year, also choose the month the fiscal year starts.
- Choose the Escalation timing. "By task dates" spreads each task's hours over the months on the Timeline tab and prices each month at its year's rate. "By phase start" prices all of a phase's hours at the year the phase starts.
- When you change the timing, a preview shows the old and new grand totals and the difference. Confirm to save it. Select "Undo" within 15 seconds to go back.
- Open "Rates by year" under the summary cards to see each person's rate, hours and dollars in each year.
- In the Excel export, the Hours by year sheet gives the same figures per person and year, with formulas, for agency forms that ask for hours per contract year.
With task dates, a task without dates is priced at the year its phase starts. A note on the Budget and Timeline tabs tells you when undated tasks could change the result.
More detail: Escalation basis
When each new escalation year starts. The RFP or the agency's cost proposal instructions usually say which basis to use, so check them first.
Contract anniversary: Year 2 rates start on the first anniversary of the proposal start date, Year 3 on the second, and so on.
Calendar year: rates step up each January 1 after the start date.
Fiscal year: rates step up on the first day of each fiscal year after the start date. Choose the month the agency's fiscal year starts (often July, sometimes October).
No escalation: rates stay the same for the whole contract and the escalation % is not used.
A month that contains the date rates step up is priced at the rates in effect on its first day. For example, with a March 15 start, March of the next year still uses Year 1 rates and April uses Year 2 rates.
More detail: Escalation timing
Which date decides a task's escalation year.
By task dates: each task's hours are spread evenly across the months it is scheduled on the Timeline tab, and each month is priced at the rates for the escalation year it falls in. Tasks without dates are priced at their phase's start year.
By phase start: every hour in a phase is priced at the year the phase starts in, whenever its tasks run. This is how proposals made before this choice existed were priced, so their totals stay the same.
Switching shows the old and new totals before anything is saved.
More detail: Rates by year
Each person's billing rate in each escalation year of the project, with the hours and dollars that fall in each year. Agency forms that ask for estimated hours per contract year can be filled from this table or from the Hours by year sheet in the Excel export.