The real-time beauty of both MetaBid Formulas and Factors is that each project attendee sees the adjusted data from their own perspective. For instance, a supplier with a 5% penalty always sees winning bid amounts entered by competitors as 5% lower so that they know the bid amount they would have to submit in order to beat the winning bid. All bidders always see their own bids exactly as they entered them. If a supplier bids $57.00 then the supplier always sees the record of that bid as $57.00

With different discounts and penalties applied to different bids from different suppliers the data can get very confusing. Iasta SmartSource manages all the adjustments so that attendees view the data as it applies to their bid and ranking in the project.

For example: For a lot in a standard reverse auction, Supplier A receives a 5% discount while Supplier B receives no adjustment. Supplier A starts the bidding with a bid amount of $105.00. Supplier B sees the current winning bid as $99.75 (Supplier A's actual bid amount minus their discount) so Supplier B submits a bid for $98.00, which becomes the winning bid. Supplier A sees the $98.00 bid as $103.16 because that is the bid amount they would have to beat when you factor in their 5% discount.

This table shows what each attendee sees as the winning bid after each bid is placed:

As you can see, each attendee's view is individually adjusted to accommodate both the discounts of the submitter and their own discounts/penalties so they can compete fairly in the event without having visibility to the adjustments being calculated by the sponsor.

Similarly, in a Dutch auction, attendees see bed ranges that have been adjusted to include their Metabid Formula assignment.