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Capture Profile best practices

Best practices to make your CLEATUS Capture Profile as strong and effective as possible.

Your Capture Profile (formerly the Company Profile) drives your recommendations and your artificial intelligence (AI) proposal drafts. A complete, specific profile helps CLEATUS understand your strengths. This article gives best practices for each tab. For the steps, see Setting Up Your Capture Profile and Capture Profile.

Or just ask CLEATUS

Review my capture profile and tell me what is missing that would improve my matches

The agent reads all four tabs and points out gaps, conflicts, and weak capabilities.

What else the agent can do

1. Company Details

This tab sets who you are and which contracts CLEATUS considers.

  • If you have a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), click Import from UEI first. CLEATUS fills in your details from SAM.gov.
  • Add every set-aside program that you qualify for. Set-asides act as a filter. With none selected, CLEATUS recommends only contracts that are open to everyone.
  • Under Contract Source, select only the sources that you bid on. Select Subcontracts if you also want work under larger prime awards.
  • Leave Place of Performance empty to include every location. Select Only these to limit matches to your region. Select All except to exclude states where you never work.
  • Under Industry Certifications, pick each certification that you hold from the library. Keep the list current.

2. Capabilities

Capabilities are the foundation of AI matching. CLEATUS compares each capability against the scope of every open contract.

For each capability, include:

  • Capability Title: one clear service name. Use one service per capability.
  • Description: up to 450 characters on what the service does, who it serves, your methods, and your deliverables.
  • Differentiators (optional): up to three, such as certifications, unique tools, or team strengths.

Best practices:

  • Describe the service, not the product. Write "Office Furniture Supply & Installation", not "Office chairs".
  • Create a separate capability for each core service line, for example "Construction Management" and "Claims & Dispute Resolution".
  • Aim for High strength. A High capability covers all four essentials: what, who, methods, and deliverables.
  • Fix Low capabilities first. CLEATUS does not match Low-strength capabilities to contracts. Click Strengthen with AI to rewrite them with the agent.
  • If you have a capability statement, click Import from Capability Statement to extract capabilities from it.

If you need a capability statement, use the free Capability Statement Builder.

3. Preferences

The Preferences tab replaces the old bid/no-bid criteria. Each preference has a weight:

  • Must Have: CLEATUS removes every contract that does not match.
  • Prefer: CLEATUS ranks matching contracts higher.
  • Avoid: CLEATUS ranks matching contracts lower, but keeps them.
  • Must Avoid: CLEATUS removes matching contracts. Use it for true deal-breakers.

Best practices:

  • Start from the library. Click Browse & Add Preferences and pick presets before you type your own.
  • Use Must Have rarely. One Must Have preference removes every contract that does not match it.
  • Use Avoid for things you dislike but sometimes accept. Keep Must Avoid for things you never bid on.
  • Do not repeat what other tabs cover. Set-asides and locations belong in Company Details. Services belong in Capabilities.
  • Accept and dismiss your recommendations. CLEATUS learns from them and marks those preferences Learned from activity.
  • Revisit your preferences every quarter as your capacity and strategy change.

Example:

  • Prefer: "$100K - $500K", "Remote-only delivery", "Includes training or knowledge transfer".
  • Avoid: "Travel up to 50% of time".
  • Must Avoid: "International travel required", plus any agencies that you never pursue.

The clearer your preferences, the fewer off-target opportunities CLEATUS shows you.

4. Experience

This tab shows your proven work, so CLEATUS understands your capabilities in action.

  • When your profile has a UEI, CLEATUS imports your federal contracts and contract vehicles from SAM.gov.
  • Click Add Experience to add state, local, private, and subcontract work.
  • Include the customer, amount, dates, and a description of the scope.
  • Focus on outcomes, for example "Delivered ahead of schedule" or "Improved energy efficiency by 20%".

Example:

  • Customer: Arlington County
  • Amount: $2.3M
  • Description: Designed and installed solar retrofit systems across three municipal buildings. Increased energy efficiency by 22%.

CLEATUS matches new opportunities against this award history. Those recommendations show a Past Performance badge.

5. Keep your profile updated

Your Capture Profile changes as your business grows. Review it every two to three months. Add new capabilities, certifications, and awards as soon as you have them. A current profile improves your matches and your AI proposal drafts.