Vendor360
Working MCS
The portal where how you write a bid moves the number more than anywhere else on our book, and where keeping invoicing aligned to their settled amounts pays off most.
Getting a bid approved
- 01
Wording is worth about eleven points here
Of every national we work, MCS shows the widest gap between a descriptive, measured write-up and a telegraphic one. Measured within the same processors and the same client, so it is the writing doing the work rather than one person being better than another. Capitals lose here more than anywhere.
- 02
On shrub work, bid lower
Approved shrub and bush bids cluster meaningfully below the median rejected bid. This is one of the few places where price genuinely is the lever, and where coming in high simply loses the work.
- 03
On tree work, price is not the lever
Tree trimming approval is flat across every price band we measured. Discounting there gives away margin for nothing — the wording and the measurement are what decide it.
Submitting and invoicing
- 01
Invoice against their settled amounts
Reconciling a real book, a vendor's own priced invoices differed from the MCS settled amount on most rows, with consistent ratios — a pricing assumption drifting over time rather than errors. Price from what MCS actually settles and the gap closes.
- 02
Work order numbers carry a prefix
Their exports use a slightly different form of the number most vendors hold internally. Account for it and records line up almost completely.
Getting paid
- 01
A cheque number of zero means not yet paid
Rows that are finalized but not yet paid carry a cheque number of "0". Worth knowing, so those rows are not counted as cash before they arrive.
In practice
If you run MCS at volume, two habits pay for themselves: write every bid in full sentences with the measurement in, and check invoiced amounts against their finalized figures monthly. We do both as standard.