Before You Start
Confirm your role, the organization's actual clarification rules and the purchasing owner. Gather the common requirement, submitted offers/request text and permitted evidence location. Clarification should explain an existing ambiguity; this procedure does not invite a changed price or offer substance, rank suppliers or waive requirements.
Steps
- Identify the common requirement and its exact locator.
- Write one neutral question for each existing ambiguity, without suggesting new offer terms.
- Assign recipients: common requirement information consistently under the actual rules; private offer questions separately.
- Obtain the actual purchasing approval for the questions and information groups.
- Issue through the authorized route, retaining the actual issue date and supplied response deadline.
- Record each response date and exact document/page/paragraph, preserving unanswered questions and exceptions.
Use the clarification register as the output. Keep approval evidence, original questions and source responses; a second communication type alone does not prove identity, authorship, trusted contact provenance or contractual notice service. Stop/escalate an unresolved route rather than calling it verified.
Fictional Worked Case
The request covers 30 folding tables. R4 requires delivery to the named office within 14 calendar days of order. Supplied rules require purchasing-owner approval, answers three calendar days after issue and an owner decision for amendments. All suppliers, dates and statements are invented.
| Offer | Ambiguity/action | Recipient and record |
|---|---|---|
| A: 'delivery in 14 days' | Ask what start point the submitted 14-day statement uses, without inviting a new delivery period. | A private; original offer and question linked |
| B: no delivery start point stated | Ask for any passage in the submitted offer defining delivery timing from order; if absent, record not stated. Do not solicit replacement terms. | B private; its own offer/question linked |
| C: '18 calendar days from order' | No ambiguity on this point;18 does not meet R4's 14 as written. Do not ask C to cut it to 14. | No clarification question; evaluation owner handles the submitted offer |
The fictional run assumes the owner has approved these two questions for issue May 10, 2027. They are due May 13: three calendar days. A replies May 12, with locator reply page 1 paragraph 3. B replies May 14, one day late; exact response locator is NOT SUPPLIED and must be obtained. Do not invent either answer's content. Counts:A 1 +B 1 +C 0 =two issued questions.
Exception: Material Change
If a question or answer would change price, quantity, delivery substance or the common requirement, log the issue and send it to the purchasing owner for the actual amendment/process decision. Protect supplier-specific offer details; do not share private responses with competitors merely because common clarifications need consistent communication. B's lateness is for the owner to handle under the applicable rules, not an automatic rejection by the issuer.
Human Boundary and Check
The purchasing owner approves questions and decides amendment treatment. Evaluators assess offers separately. Before handing over, check requirement locator, neutral wording, actual approval, recipients, issue/due dates, reply locators and unresolved route/late-answer status. Issuing a question or filing an answer approves no offer or commitment.
Sources and Scope
The UN Procurement Practitioner's Handbook, clarification/amendment passages, is descriptive UN practice; its opened copy's edition date is not established. CC 8 (November 27, 2024), decision guidance (November 2, 2020) and CC 26 (September 16, 2026) inform authority/records/risks in England and Wales. NCSC phishing guidance (published 2018; reviewed February 13, 2024;version 2.0) recommends checking important requests through another communication type, without authentication guarantees. Steps and case are original practice. Checked November 1, 2026.