3.1 Background

Building projects are typically priced in a bill of quantities, breaking the construction down into discrete, well-understood items of a known cost. The list of items can be very large, so is typically arranged in a hierarchy with broad categories at the top and increasing detailed descriptions at the lower levels. Building elements are measured and quantities entered against applicable bill items. A single wall could potentially contribute to many different costs, e.g. bricks/blocks/framing, insulation and finishes.

The bill structure may be developed in-house, customised project-by-project or imported from an external source, e.g. database or cloud-based. The software is designed to provide for all of these scenarios, and additional connectivity is planned for direct links to 3rd-party bills of quantity in future.

This section discusses different types of bill structures, with methods for creating, importing, editing and exporting.