How to answer a tender in an afternoon with Claude

Load your last five tender responses, your capability statement, your case studies and your policies into a Claude Project. Paste in the new tender's criteria. Ask Claude to build the compliance table, then draft each response using only what is in those documents, and to mark anything it cannot find.

A person then checks every claim before it goes in. That check is the part you cannot skip.

Done this way, the first full draft takes an afternoon, and your best people spend their time on the two or three criteria that actually win the work. Four prompts below, plus the one thing to read in the tender before you upload anything.

Why this matters for a business under 200 people

Under the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, an SME is an Australian or New Zealand business with fewer than 200 full-time equivalent employees. The rules also name "costly preparation of submissions" as a barrier that stops SMEs competing, and the government has a target of 40 per cent of Commonwealth contracts by value going to SMEs, for contracts up to $20 million.

So if you are a 60 to 200 person business, the tenders are there. What usually stops you is the three days a senior person loses pulling together the same answers they wrote last quarter. That is the part Claude can take off them.

Before you upload anything: read the conditions of tender

Every approach to market comes with conditions. Read them before anything goes into Claude, looking for two things: anything said about AI or automated tools, and anything marking the buyer's documents as confidential or limiting where they can be stored. If the conditions restrict either, follow them, and ask the contact officer if it is unclear.

Then check your own setup. Use a business Claude plan, keep the Project shared only with the bid team, and know where your data goes. We covered that in where your data actually goes when Claude reads your CRM.

Step 1: build the bid Project

A Claude Project holds documents and a standing set of instructions, and on Team and Enterprise plans you can share it with the people who need it. Once the documents get large, paid plans switch the Project into a search mode automatically so it can hold more.

What to put in it:

• Your last three to five submitted responses, ideally ones you won
• Your capability statement
• Case studies, with the numbers the client has signed off
• Policies buyers ask for: WHS, privacy, modern slavery, insurance certificates, quality
• Staff bios and the CVs you normally attach

Then set the Project instructions:

You help our bid team write tender responses.
Only use facts that appear in the project documents.
If a criterion needs a fact you cannot find, write [CHECK: what is missing] instead of guessing.
Never invent numbers, client names, certifications or dates.
Write in plain Australian English. Answer the question asked, in the order it is asked.

Step 2: the compliance table

Paste the evaluation criteria and the response requirements in, then run this:

Read the tender requirements below. Build a table with one row per requirement:
- the requirement, quoted exactly
- mandatory or weighted, and the weighting if given
- word or page limit
- which project documents contain material for the answer
- gaps: anything we have no material for
List any format rules (templates, fonts, file types, deadlines) separately at the end.

The gaps column is the most useful thing on the page. It tells you, before anyone writes a word, what you need to chase from your own team.

Step 3: draft each response

Draft our response to criterion [number]: [paste criterion].
Stay under [limit] words.
Lead with the direct answer, then the evidence.
Use the case study that best matches this buyer's sector, and say why it matches.
Mark anything you cannot support from the documents with [CHECK].

Work one criterion at a time. Batch drafting the whole thing gives you generic answers that all sound the same.

Four minutes on why AI makes things up in sales documents and how to stop it, which is exactly the risk in a tender.

Step 4: the claim check

Before a person reads the draft, make Claude check its own work:

List every factual claim in this response: numbers, dates, client names, certifications, staff experience.
For each one, name the project document it came from.
Flag anything with no source.

Then a person goes down that list. Every number, every client name, every certification. A tender response is a representation to a government buyer, and a wrong one can cost you the contract after you have won it.

The HubSpot part: finding the right case study

If your CRM is HubSpot, connect it to Claude and ask it to find your evidence for you:

Find closed won deals from the last two years where the company is in [buyer's sector] or is a government entity.
Show deal name, amount, close date and the owner.

The deal owner is the person who can confirm the story and knows whether the client will act as a referee. If you are new to connecting HubSpot this way, start with what MCP is and what it changes for your CRM.

Many tenders now include a security questionnaire as well. If yours asks about your own AI use, we wrote up the AI security questions buyers are sending, with answers worth preparing once and reusing.

Where to find the tenders

Commonwealth opportunities are published on AusTender, and each state runs its own portal, such as QTenders in Queensland. Set up alerts for your categories and keep the bid Project ready, so a new approach to market starts from a table rather than a blank page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use AI to write a government tender response in Australia? Generally yes, unless the conditions of tender say otherwise. Read the conditions first, check whether they say anything about AI or restrict where the buyer's documents can be stored, and follow what they say.

Will Claude make things up in a tender response? It can, which is why the Project instructions tell it to use only your documents and to mark gaps with [CHECK]. A person still checks every number, client name and certification before submission.

What should go into a Claude Project for tenders? Your recent submitted responses, capability statement, signed-off case studies, the policies buyers ask for, and staff bios. Share the Project only with the bid team.

Does my business count as an SME for Commonwealth tenders? Under the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, an SME is an Australian or New Zealand business with fewer than 200 full-time equivalent employees, counting associated entities such as a parent company.

Sources

• Commonwealth Procurement Rules, Department of Finance, for the SME definition, the submission cost barrier and the SME targets.
• How can I create and manage projects?, Claude Help Center, for Project knowledge, instructions and sharing.
• QTenders, Queensland Government, as an example of a state tender portal.

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Want your CRM, your case studies and Claude working together before the next tender drops? Talk to us.