3.3 Creating and managing a Bill structure

The BoQ can be viewed and edited in the Quantity Take-off Manager, which can be opened by clicking the menu item CI Tools > Quantities > Quantity Take-off Manager and selecting the Bill Structure tab. All Quantities palettes also display an icon to quickly open the manager dialog.

The key features of the manager are:

1. An option to manage either the bill structure or measurement recipes. Click Bill Structure for the purpose of this section.
2. An overview of the bill structure with buttons for creating, deleting, importing and exporting bill items. Details of the selected item are shown in the panel below (see 3 below). The bill structure is headed up with the name of the open project.
   
   The next item under the project is headed up Project Bill. Any items created in the manager are displayed under this heading; they are saved in the project file and can only be applied to the current project. If a bill structure is linked to this project from an eternal source, e.g. an external file or database, it will be displayed under a separate heading and cannot be edited (see sections 3.3.7 and 3.3.8 for more details).
   
   Multiple items can be selected for quick editing or deletion.
3. Details of the selected bill item. If multiple items are selected, only the details of the first are displayed. The following fields can be edited for multiple items simultaneously apart from the key and name (where only the first item will be changed).
   
   a. The item key. It can be any combination or letters and numbers, but should not duplicate any other item at the same level (for clarity, because calculated project quantities will be set against the key in the schedule). The keys often reflect established construction classification systems, e.g. Uniclass.
   
   The full item key is displayed beside this field. When the item is arranged in a hierarchy under a category, the full key is prefixes the ancestor category keys to the item key, e.g. ‘10.24.73’. If the bill is a flat list, i.e. no categories, the key and full key are the same.
   
   b. The item title. Anything can be entered.
   
   c. An optional external reference, e.g. a manufacturer or external database code, for informational purposes only. This information is included in exported schedules.
   
   d. Rate, i.e. cost per unit. Can be zero if the costing is calculated externally based on exported quantities.
   
   e. Unit of measurement, e.g. ‘metre’, ‘mm’, ‘each’, displayed in a popup menu. These items are user-defined – refer to section 3.3.5 for more information.
   
   f. An optional description, usually to clarify what should be measured (or how). This information is not included in the schedule.

Note that changes to the bill structure only become permanent the OK button is clicked. If Cancel is clicked, all changes will be discarded.