Are you a business owner or consultant in Kenya looking for new opportunities? Finding and applying for tenders and consultancy projects can be a game-changer for your growth. In this video, I’ll walk you through the process of how to effectively search and find these opportunities online in Kenya. I’ll cover the best websites, search strategies, and tips to help you identify the right projects for your business.
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On the top menu, click on tenders. On the dropdown, select ‘active tenders.’
Skim through active tenders there within your category and click view. On the new window click on view again. This will open a preview of the tender.
Look for one with a negotiation number. Most of the government institutions and county government tenders have a negotiation number.
As for this example, I have found one from the county government with a negotiation number.
Download, fill the tender and put together all the documents needed as attachment in one folder ready to submit.
Tender Submission On IFMIS
You need an IFMIS account to file your tender. If you don’t have one already, you can sign up on the portal www.supplier.treasury.go.ke
Fill in the required details to sign up.
Once done, login to your account to submit your Tender application. This is where the negotiation number you picked earlier in the tender document will come into play.
On the right side of the page, you will see menu and below it there is a folder named sourcing supplier.
Click on it to open the dropdown. Under the sourcing folder click on sourcing homepage.
You will be taken to this page here. On top you can see number then a box to the left as you can see below.
Paste the negotiation number on the box and click on go. You will be take to this page here where you will see the tender. Click on the number again to open.
From here you can complete the tender document and submit. And that is it. If you have any question and need help, click on help link here. This will take you to a page with contact of the support team.
I hope you found this tutorial helpful. Share your feedback in the comments section below.
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Until next time, bye bye and take care. Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.
Before registering a limited company in Kenya, its important to know how much it will cost you to run the same company. It costs money to just own a company with no registered office. Having this knowledge in handy will prepare a new entrepreneur on what to expect.
Video: The cost of owning and running a business in Kenya
I will not delve into the cost of registering business because it variable and is done once. However, you can see a breakdown of business registration costs on the Business Registration Service portal.
In this blogpost, I will share with you the cost of running a a registered limited company in Kenya. The information I will be sharing is based on my experience running a company Trendline Network Limited for now 5 years. Trendline Network Limited is a videography company based in Nairobi.
In the year 2019 towards the end, I closed down our physical offices and started operation from home little before Covid lockdown came. In the year 2020, we did only one job. It was the lowest year in business and we made only losses.
Operation costs
So, how did I manage the costs as the only remaining director of the company?
First thing I did was deciding to handle business the freelance way. I paid whoever worked with me per task completed and not per month. This thus gave me a space to continue looking for business opportunities while maintaining the company. When you go this route, you will save money and still maintain good relationship with your team.
While business have not looked up yet, I have saved time and money.
Let’s dive in further and breakdown company operation costs. Here is a list.
Tax and Accounting Costs
Limited company is an independent entity with its own Tax PIN. You as the director is therefore responsible for any activity that takes place within your company. You have to ensure that everything is accounted for. If you succeed to get business with a large organization, the company will expect you to charge them VAT.
While KRA maintains that only registered traders with an annual turnover of KShs. 5 million and above are required to charge VAT. And that, there are instances where a person with less than KShs. 5 million is allowed to register on a voluntary basis, you will find your company forced to register for this obligation in order to get business with reputable organization.
VAT obligation is the price you have to pay. When you have VAT obligation under your PIN, you will be required to remit tax monthly before 20th even if you had zero transaction during the month. According to KRA, ‘failing to comply is an offence subject to a penalty of Ksh 10,000 for every tax period failure occurs. This is in addition to other penalties prescribed in law.
Good news is, you can do this yourself or you can hire someone to do it for you. If you hire, it will cost anything from Ksh.500-3000 a month. Annually, this translates to between Ksh.6000-36,000 annually.
Audit Cost
Annually, you company needs to be audited in order to remit income tax. This gives you an upper hand in getting business through the tendering process. One of the mandatory requirements when tendering is having audited accounts ready.
This is for the purposes of remitting annual income tax. Depending who you are dealing with and the amount of work required, the minimum cost I have paid an auditor was Ksh. 10,000. This was when the annual sales was less than Ksh. 50,000.
So when you combine this with Tax and accounting cost, it will cost a minimum of Ksh.16,000 annually.
Tendering Cost (For Those Who Get Business Through Tendering )
On average, when you download and print a tender online, it costs between Ksh.150-250 to print based on the number of pages. You will have to make copies and attach various documents, bind and submit. At the end, you will spend between Ksh.500-1000 to have the tender document ready for submission.
You will also have to gather for transport cost or employ courier services to deliver the tender document. This will cost Ksh. 200-500 within Nairobi area and more outside.
If you apply for 4 Tenders a month, you will spend a minimum of Ksh.2400. This is on occasions where you are doing everything yourself with no assistant.
Conclusion
Its important to note that there are other additional costs of running a business like renting a office space, paying for business permit, paying annual fees for membership to various professional entities like media council of Kenya, The society of professional consultants e.t.c.
I hope this post sheds a light on the basic cost of running and operating a registered company in Kenya without a physical location.
Feel free to share your feedback in the comments section below.
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Based on the statitisc’s from the Public Procurement Information Portal (PPIP), in the financial year 2020-2021, out of 4770 contracts that were awarded, none of them was on the AGPO program.
This begs the question; do tenders allocated to youth, women and people with disabilities really exist?
In the year 2013, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta launched the AGPO program (Access to Government Procurement Opportunities). The AGPO program’s main mission was to give youth, women, and people with disabilities access to government procurement opportunities.
It’s now 9 years down the line since the program was launched and no data to indicate that some tenders have been awarded to this group has been recorded by the PPIP.
What does this mean? Lets dive in further and find out.
A quick visit to the AGPO online portal shows the latest tenders to this group was published in the year 2018-2019. This thus indicates that either, the program stopped being implemented or there no latest tender for this group.
However, there are two things that you can do on the AGPO site as we speak.
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The first one is to apply for a certificate, popularly known as AGPO Certificate by clicking on the sign-up button. The registration process requires that you submit all the mandatory documents to qualify for tenders under this program.
You are required to attach a copy of your Kenyan National ID issued by the government of Kenya. Alternatively, you can submit your Kenyan passport. To learn more on how to acquire nation ID, click here.
Business Registration Certificate or Certificate of Incorporation
Secondly, attach a copy of the Business registration certificate for sole proprietorship enterprises. For limited companies, submit a Certificate of incorporation. You can register a business or company on the BRS Portal.
CR12 for Limited Company From Registrar of of Companies
Thirdly, attach CR12; a document that shows the directors of the company as well your company location address. This is system generated document. You can obtain this document on Business Registration Service (BRS) portal.
Partnership Deed for Partnership Business
This requirement only applies to businesses registered by more than one person. A partnership deed is a copy of the deed you submitted to the registrar of companies on registration. It is a legally binding document of all members (partners) in a business.
This is a document that you attach showing that your business or company is Tax compliant. It is a system generated document from Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) ITAX portal.
National Construction Authority Letter – Certificate for Construction Category
This is a certificate issued by the National Construction Authority (NCA). The certificate acquisition fee starts from Ksh. 5000 to 100,000 depending on the category. There are other additional requirements to this that you can see on the site while making your application.
Once you have completed your application, wait for AGPO approval. The AGPO certificate will be sent to you by e-mail when approved.
AGPO approved enterprises are listed on the AGPO site. You can verify if your company has been listed using Verify business link on the AGPO site.
But with all this done, where is the business? Is this it? That’s your assignment. I have done mine.
The question which still remains unanswered is, why has AGPO not recorded any statistics with the PPIP to indicate the number of tenders awarded to youth, women, and people with disabilities?
As I close, I would like to know your experience tendering for business under the AGPO.
Have you ever been awarded a tender? If yes, how was your experience?
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If you own a videography and photography services company in Kenya; then on a regular basis you fill and submit tender and prequalification documents hoping that one of them will go through.
Owing to several applications received by the tendering companies every day, new requirements are added in to beef up security and eliminate the many applications.
In this blogpost, I will take you through some of the newest requirements when submitting dully filled tender documents via the government IFMIS portal.
While some of the requirements are good for the tendering companies, its bad news for small businesses as some of these requirements are paid. Here 3 latest shocking ones.
SIGNED AND CERTIFIED DOCUMENTS BY COMMISIONER OF OATHS WITH CURRENT DATE OF TENDER ADVERTISEMENT
Here is one tender document for provision of Production of Video documentary that had this requirement mandatory. It was turn off for me.
Screenshot from Tender document
It will cost Ksh.1000 to have your company documents stamped by an advocate. Secondly, the whole procedure of getting the documents stamped will not be done online.
Most young entrepreneurs in the videography and photography category are very creative and can mobilize resources to produce a quality documentary. However, they will he locked out because they cannot afford to pay a commissioner of oaths.
Procuring entities should have a leeway for youths and people with disabilities when it comes to some of the mandatory requirements.
This is because none is assured of getting the tender even after paying the price to get the documents stamped and signed.
With good fiber optic infrastructure in place across Kenya, anyone can get high speed internet installed and connected to them in the shortest time possible.
Internet speed
Requiring a company to provide evidence of stable internet connection should not be mandatory. Even if at the time of submitting the tender, the Tenderer is using low speed internet, they can quickly upgrade if they are awarded the tender.
In my opinion, this is unnecessary unless the tendering company is focused on hiring a very established supplier.
This includes; Indemnity against risk or Workman Injuries Benefit Cover (WIBA). Insurance is good especially in a workplace.
But imagine this scenario; an entrepreneur has taken an insurance cover for a whole year and never got any tender awarded to them. Do you think he/she will renew it again? Hell no.
I am referring here to the less established businesses. They will first look for contracts. And once they have an ongoing contract in place, they will then consider paying for an insurance cover.
Practically, this requirement should come after one has been awarded the contract. Simple.
This way, the tenderer will have no excuse when it comes to insurance cover. And that is it from me here.
What is that one tender requirement that has lately shocked you and made you discouraged to apply?
Let me know in the comments section below. If you have any questions or comments, send them to me on connect@cheptiony
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