Terms of Service
These terms govern every engagement between Tenderset (the consultant) and you (the client). Plain English throughout — no Latin, no legalese. If anything is unclear, ask before you sign the Statement of Work.
1. Parties
Tenderset is a tender-preparation consultancy operating in South Africa, based in KwaZulu-Natal. When these terms say "we", "us", or "Tenderset", that's who we mean.
The client is the individual or business entity that signs the Statement of Work (SOW). When we say "you" or "the client", that's who we mean.
These terms apply to every engagement we take on. The SOW signed at kickoff specifies the tier, deliverables, fees, and timeline for that particular engagement. Where the SOW and these terms conflict, the SOW governs.
2. Scope of services
We provide tender-preparation services in three tiers:
- Audit — a read of the RFP, compliance gap analysis, and a go/no-go memo. No bid content is drafted.
- Build — a complete bid pack assembled from your existing documents. Includes methodology, pricing schedule, references, completed SBD forms, brand-tailored PDF, printed and bound bid pack with USB drive, and a courier-ready padded envelope addressed for the tender box.
- Strategic — everything in Build, plus adversarial review, pricing model with sensitivity scenarios, programme construction, and clarification responses during the panel evaluation period.
The specific deliverables, milestones, and due dates for your engagement are set out in the Statement of Work. Services outside the SOW scope require a written change order agreed by both parties.
3. What we will not do
These are not negotiable. They exist to protect both parties.
- Sign as the bidder. You sign every wet-ink page yourself. We are consultants, not co-bidders. This is the line that keeps both of us on the right side of the B-BBEE Act fronting provisions.
- Charge a percentage of the contract value. Flat fees only. We have no financial stake in the award outcome.
- Lobby evaluation panels. We have no contact with panels during evaluation. We prepare; the panel scores.
- File BBBEE certificates, CIDB registrations, or SARS returns on your behalf. Those are statutory filings that belong to specialised firms; we will refer you.
- Make or imply any representation about the award outcome. We prepare your submission; whether it wins depends on the panel's scoring of your underlying capability, pricing, and competition.
4. Fees and payment
Fees are flat-rate, denominated in ZAR, and stated in the Statement of Work. They are not contingent on the award outcome.
- Payment schedule: 50% on signature of the SOW; 50% on delivery of the final submission pack.
- Method: ZAR EFT only. No cash. No third-party payments accepted.
- Late payment: outstanding balances accrue interest at 2% per month from the due date.
- VAT: VAT treatment as stated on the SOW. We will register for VAT once the threshold is reached and update invoicing accordingly.
5. Indemnity and liability cap
Our liability to you under any engagement is limited to the fees paid by you under that specific engagement. We are not liable for the value of the tender contract, loss of profit, loss of revenue, or any consequential or indirect loss arising from the outcome of the bid process.
We prepare documents based on the information you provide and our reading of the RFP. The evaluation panel makes its own scoring decisions independently of us. We cannot and do not warrant award outcomes.
You indemnify Tenderset against any claim arising from information you have provided to us that is inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading — including any misrepresentation of your BBBEE status, CIDB grade, or past experience.
6. Conflict of interest
We conduct a conflict-of-interest check before accepting every engagement. If another existing client of Tenderset is already engaged on the same RFP, we will decline the new engagement. The first engagement wins (FIFO rule).
If a conflict is identified after engagement has started, we will notify you immediately and, if required, terminate the engagement with a pro-rata fee refund for work not yet delivered. We will not proceed in a way that compromises either client's position.
7. Confidentiality
Mutual non-disclosure applies from the date the SOW is signed.
- Your documents, bid strategy, pricing, and business information are confidential. We do not share them with any other client, third party, or procurement panel beyond what the RFP requires.
- Our proprietary tooling, templates, and process methodology are confidential. You agree not to reproduce or distribute them.
- This obligation survives termination of the engagement for a period of 3 years.
8. Data protection
We process your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Notice and the engagement-specific Data Processing Addendum (DPA) attached to the SOW.
Key obligations: your documents are deleted within 30 days of engagement end; you receive a written deletion confirmation; your data is never used to train AI models; no personal data is shared between clients.
9. Intellectual property
- Your content: you retain all rights to any content, documents, data, and information you provide to us.
- Our tooling and templates: Tenderset retains all rights to its proprietary processing engine, templates, and internal methodology.
- Output bid pack: the final submission documents are jointly authored, with rights vesting in you on receipt of the final payment. Before that point, Tenderset retains a lien over the deliverables.
10. Termination
Either party may terminate the engagement by giving 7 days' written notice to the other.
- On termination, you pay pro-rata fees for work completed up to the termination date, based on the milestone structure in the SOW.
- Deliverables completed before the notice date are released on payment of the applicable pro-rata fee.
- Data deletion obligations survive termination and are executed within 30 days of the termination date.
11. Dispute resolution
If a dispute arises, we try to resolve it directly first. If direct negotiation fails within 30 days, the parties proceed to formal mediation with a mutually agreed mediator.
If mediation fails, the dispute is referred to arbitration under the rules of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA). The seat of arbitration is KwaZulu-Natal. The language of proceedings is English.
12. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Both parties submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of KwaZulu-Natal.