Engineering sales is expensive before it is anything else
A tender submission costs real money. Estimation hours, a proposal team, document fees, a site visit, sometimes bid security and a partner arrangement. Unlike most industries, an engineering firm cannot chase everything and sort it out later, because the pursuit itself consumes the margin. That single fact should shape the whole capture design. The purpose of recording an opportunity properly is not to build a longer list, it is to reach a defensible decision about whether to spend anything on it, and to reach that decision in days rather than in the final week.
Two fields decide almost everything
The submission deadline sets the calendar, working backwards through pre-bid meetings, document collection, partner letters and internal review. The prequalification criteria decide whether that calendar is worth maintaining at all. Firms that capture both at the moment an opportunity enters the system rarely lose a tender on eligibility or on timing. Firms that do not tend to lose several a year on both, and to describe those losses afterwards as bad luck.