Hiring Freelancers for your Bid Type Project
Opening a Bid Type project allows Freelancers to place bids with how much they will complete the project for and how long it may take them to complete the project. You have the ability to review any of the bids submitted for your project and hire the person(s) you feel will complete the project to your specifications. In order to view the bids for your project you must visit your Project Management page. First you can go to the For Employers section and click Projects I’ve Posted. Click into the project you wish to manage to get to the Project Management page.
Here you will notice three columns on Bid Style projects.
Bids: These are the Bids that have been submitted by possible Freelancers for your project. These are Bids that are currently open and have not been reviewed. Here you have the option to Award the bid or Decline the Bid. Awarding the Bid will move the contract to Bid Awarded status. Declining the Bid will close the Bid and move it to the closed column.
Open: These are contracts for your project that you have awarded and are in progress by the Freelancer. The statuses for these contracts are laid out below.
Here we will lay out all of the statuses for Open Contracts in a Bid Style project.
- Bid Awarded: Bid Awarded status means that you have awarded the bid to the Freelancer, but the Freelancer has not begun working on the project yet
- Working: Working status means that the Freelancer has begun working on your project
- For Review: For Review status means the Freelancer has submitted their work for you to review and either release payment for the project, or send back for more work
- Past Due: Past Due status means the Freelancer has not completed the project on time
- Failed Review: Failed Review status means the Freelancer submitted their work for review and you have sent the work back to have changes made
- Reopened Pending Start: This status is applied to a contract after you have reopened the contract and moved it back to the Open column. This status appears before the Freelancer has begun working on the contract again
- Edit Under Review: Edit Under Review status means you have made edits to the project and the Freelancer is reviewing the edits to determine if they still wish to work on the project. If the Freelancer decides to continue working they can simply accept the edits. If they decline to continue working then they can quit without any penalty to you or them
Closed: All contracts present in the Closed column of the Project Management page have either been closed by you, the Employer, or by the Freelancers themselves. You have the ability to close a contract at any point, while the Freelancer has the ability to quit a contract at any point. Some of these options will harm your Payment Percentage scores and some will not.
Here we will lay out all of the statuses for Closed Contracts and what your options are with those contract.
- Bid Declined: The Bid Declined status indicates a Bid that you reviewed and declined to award. Declining a Bid has no effect on your Payment Percentage. If you decline a bid by accident you always have the options to either Reopen the Bid, which moves the Bid back to the Bids column, or you can simply Hire the Freelancer right then which moves the contract to Bid Awarded status in the Open column.
- Cancelled: Cancelled status refers to any contract that you declined to pay
- Freelancer Quit: This status displays when the Freelancer has quit the project. If a Freelancer has quit the project there are no options to allow the Freelancer to work on the project again.
- Auto Cancelled; The Auto Cancelled status displays when you have the Auto Cancel option turned on in your Project Settings. This setting will automatically cancel any contract which moves into Past Due status.
- Auto Paid: The Auto Paid status displays when you have the Auto Pay option turned on in your Project Settings. Auto Pay provides you with the ability to set a Review Period where you can review the work submissions made by your Freelancer. If you do not Pay the contract, or Fail Review on the contract before the Review Period expires then the contract will be automatically paid. Once a contract is automatically paid there is no way to reverse the payment
- Paid: The Paid status displays when you have manually paid a Freelancer for a completed project.
Contract Options
The Latium platform provides it’s users with multiple options to manage their open contracts, depending on the statuses those contracts are in. You can find the Contract Options by simply clicking the three dots next to the contract status
Below we will list the options that will be available and describe what actions they take.
- Hire: This option will award the project to the Freelancer. This option can be used in the Bids column or on a Declined Bid if the employer wishes to reopen the Bid.
- Decline Bid: This option will decline the bid and move it to the Closed column
- Due Date: This option will provide you with a calendar you can use to edit the Due Date for a Bid or Open Contract
- Withdraw Award: This option withdraws the Awarded Bid from the Freelancer and moves it back to the Bids column
- Pay: This option will Pay the Freelancer and close the contract. This option cannot be undone.
- Fail Review: This option will fail the submission and alert the Freelancer to try the project again
- Cancel Contract: This option declines payment to the Freelancer and closes the contract. You can always reopen a contract in case of a mistake.
- Reopen: This option will reopen a closed contract. You may need to change the due date in order to reopen a contract. This is available in case of a mistake or if you would like to give the Freelancer another chance to complete the project.