You should review the Event Management Guide available via Help, there is a lot of good information in there. For example:
How Bid Transformation and Total Cost Auction Differ
In a total cost event the participants can edit the cost components. In a transformation event they cannot
because the cost components are not visible to them. When a template sets the Bid transformation flag, it
creates several effects:
• The project owner can set up cost components that modifies bids to arrive at a total cost. Participants
cannot see these cost components.
• The cost components can be different for different suppliers. For example, one incurs a switching cost,
another requires an import duty, a third has a different import duty. The cost components can include
other adders, subtracters, multipliers, and % discounts.
• Bid transformation auctions have only one value to bid on. The other costs are not visible to them. In a
total cost auction participants bid on the item price, and other costs that contribute to the total cost.
• In bid transformation, the bid to beat, is adjusted for each participant according to the cost components
you added. For more information, see “Bid Transformation Example”.
In Total cost, the cost components are not hidden and all participants see the same bid-to-beat.
• With Bid Transformation, the bid decrement value is adjusted for each participant, so that each sees a
different bid decrement value. Total Cost auctions do not adjust bid decrement value.