---
title: "What The \"Lump Sum\" Icon On A Bid Means"
description: "What The \"Lump Sum\" Icon On A Bid Means"
---

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# What The "Lump Sum" Icon On A Bid Means

A bidder who sends a single total instead of a price against each cost field has given you a lump sum. Zebel spreads that total across the cost fields on the bid so it can be levelled against the others, and marks the bid with a "Lump Sum" icon so you can see at a glance that the breakdown was calculated rather than submitted.

The icon sits beside the bid's "Total Base Bid" figure, in that bidder's column.

![](https://lp.zebel.io/hs-fs/hubfs/lump-sum-badge-png.png?width=1440&height=900&name=lump-sum-badge-png.png)

Here "Tidewater Sheet Metal & Roofing" submitted $248,500.00 as a lump sum, and the two bidders beside them did not.

Hover over the icon to see how the lump sum was spread. The tooltip reads "This bid is a lump sum", followed by the distribution method used:

Split evenly across cost fields — "Divide the lump sum equally across every cost field on this bid."

Split by estimate value weighted — "Distribute the lump sum across cost fields proportional to each field's estimate value."

Split by another bid's value weighted — "Distribute the lump sum across cost fields proportional to another bid's submitted values."

Split by custom percentages — "Set the percentage of the lump sum each cost field takes yourself."

NOTE, the icon only appears on bids imported as a lump sum. A bid where the bidder priced each cost field individually has no icon, which is how you tell the two apart when comparing a package.

NOTE, the figures beneath a lump sum bid are Zebel's distribution of the total, not numbers the bidder gave you. They level and compare correctly, but they are not a line-by-line quote — which is worth remembering before querying one with the bidder.

We recommend checking the icon before reading too much into a single cost field on a bid. A field that looks unusually high or low on a lump sum bid usually says more about the distribution method than about how the bidder priced that scope. To change how a total was spread, re-import the lump sum with a different distribution method — see "How To Import A Lump Sum On A Bid".

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