The first screen you need to have up is the trade screen. On that screen you can see teams current budget including current negations like it says at the bottom by the *. So, you can quick glance at the season 31 payroll and see what teams have offered out to FA. Now, when you find a team with money offered in season 31 you can click on the teams link and see their actual payroll, with out FA bids, on the franchises link. Now if you see there is a difference between two you know they have offers out. To pin point the offer you can roll the icon over World Offices down to Finances to Franchise payroll Analysis. Find the team you were peaking at from the trade screen and choose them. On that screen you choose all to include unassigned players and you can see season by season payroll. Do some quick math and you can find out how much the team is bidding on FA players. One thing you can not see though is promised bonuses.
So, you can find either Indianapolis Devils, New York Knights, Washington D.C. Black Bears, or Philadelphia Phillies on your trade proposals screen and see that all four teams have 20 million or more issues out for season 31. Go to the Payroll analysis screen and choose any of the teams and see what the real payroll is for season 31.
On that screen you can see Philly only has 6 million issued to Gill Cho. So they have 20 million on FA bids.
New York Knights have Miguel Escobar signed in season 31 so they have 20 million in FA Bids.
Indy has zero contracts for season 31 so they have 20 million in offers out as well.
D.C. has Dexter Beirne under contract in season 31 and the trade screen shows them with a budget of 27 million, so, again, they also have 20 million in FA contracts offered.
It gets a bit more difficult when max contracts are not being offered. It does take a bit of guess work on the FA the team is after but most of the time you can make a pretty good guess. Later in FA it gets much easier.
