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A new digital tool is helping the City of Yuma reduce staff time and resources on competitive bids while also adding convenience and more transparency for prospective vendors.
The City’s new procurement portal is run through the service Bonfire, which is already in use in several other Arizona cities and counties.
“With the ongoing demands of staff time and resources, we needed a system to manage our competitive bids and requests for proposals to be transparent and to help eliminate paper waste,” said Purchasing and Contracts Manager Robin Wilson.
Bonfire allows contractors and other vendors to access City business opportunities and submit bids or proposals to the City in a manner that is cloud-based and secured. This provides a number of conveniences for bidders. For one, they can submit bids from anywhere through an online connection, eliminating the need to upload or print items and then drive them to City Hall for a timestamp.
Another convenience is that the system will not allow a submission until all required documents have been included, which will help vendors cut down on errors that sometimes cause their bids to be rejected.
The City will see a number of conveniences through the new system as well. When a project closes, the City can see immediate results to identify the top lowest bidders. A great amount of manual labor is no longer required, cutting down on the potential for user errors.
“No more retyping spreadsheets,” Wilson said.
The Bonfire system also provides time savings. Bonfire states most of its clients can run projects twice as fast.
Bonfire improves transparency as well. It’s designed with built-in tools that require compliance with all applicable laws. Additionally, all documents are stored in one place and the system allows all bids to be open in a viewable online manner.
All bidders and responders to requests for proposal will automatically use Bonfire from now onward. A link for City Bids rests on the homepage of the City’s website, www.yumaaz.gov. From there, click on City Bids, then the vendor registration button. Once registered, users will simply need to log in. Once users have submitted a bid, they will receive an emailed confirmation.
“This is a win-win for everyone,” Wilson said.
