How a construction bidding firm fills bid package forms in under two minutes instead of an hour
Grace Creation Inc. manages construction bid packages for projects across several states. Each project arrives as a 300–900 page package of flat PDFs from a different architect or producer, and the contractor sections inside it all ask for the same company details. With Instafill.ai filling those sections, a bid section that took about an hour by hand now takes under two minutes.
At a glance
- Company Grace Creation Inc.
- Industry Construction bidding
- Documents Bid packages of 300–900 pages, from different architects and producers
- Forms Bidding specifications, contractor information sheets, subcontractor lists, compliance declarations
- Volume 1–2 projects, aiming for 5 a day
-
Results
Under 2 min per bid section, down from about an hour
Under 90 s to fill a document with over 200 fields
5–15 min of field review, once per form type - Catalog forms Caltrans Subcontractor List, City of Laguna Beach Bid Submittal Documents
- Form categories Construction bid forms, Contractor forms
The challenge
Every bid meant pulling specific sections out of a large manual and filling them in: bidding specifications, contractor information sheets, subcontractor lists and compliance declarations. The documents came as flat, non-fillable PDFs, each structured differently. No universal bidding form exists, and requirements change with the jurisdiction and the project type. Yet every one asked for the same contractor data: company names, license numbers and compliance certifications.
The team opened each PDF in an editor, selected the pages, cut them out, placed text boxes over the blanks and copied the data in from reference documents. One 37-page section took roughly an hour. That was manageable at one or two projects, but not at the five projects a day the firm was aiming for. In construction bidding an error or a missed deadline can lose the contract, and in a small firm the people doing this paperwork already juggle several roles.
The solution
Lydia at Grace Creation first tried Instafill.ai's flat-to-fillable conversion. It found about 70–80% of the fields, but poorly scanned pages, complex tables, unclear checkboxes and multi-line fields needed a person. Across documents this varied, full automation without a check was not practical, so Instafill.ai worked with her on a workflow that combines the AI with a short manual review.
Each flat bid document is converted first: the AI finds the blank spaces, checkboxes and signature lines and turns them into fillable fields in seconds, instead of hours of placing text boxes. The team then opens the form in the field editor, adds any field the AI missed and removes any it detected wrongly. That review takes 5–15 minutes per document and is done once per form type.
Once the fields are right, the form is fine-tuned for filling, and the contractor's data goes in from their profile. Early fills put some data in the wrong place because the AI's field descriptions were ambiguous. The team refined how those descriptions are written, and fields now map correctly more than 99% of the time.
The results
| By hand | With Instafill.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| A bid section | About an hour | Under 2 minutes |
| Fields on a flat PDF | Text boxes placed by hand | Detected, then reviewed in 5–15 minutes |
| A new form type | Set up again on every bid | Set up once, reused after that |
One of the documents Lydia sent in was a Pavement Rehabilitation Project bid with over 200 fields for contractor, insurance and compliance data. After the Instafill.ai team converted and refined it, Lydia spent a few minutes verifying the fields, and the form filled in under 90 seconds. Every later use of that form type takes under two minutes.
When she started, Lydia said: "I've been looking for something like this for quite a while. I truly hope this will make things easier and faster." The team can now take on more projects a day without losing accuracy, whichever architect or producer the package comes from.
