What is a Bill of Quantities
A bill of quantities in construction comprises a list of work items to be undertaken including description and quantities of the work in the building. The bill of quantities is generally prepared from the design consultants drawings and specifications and specialists reports and in accordance with standard methods of measurement rules including SMM7, NRM or ARM etc and can be used as a pricing tender document from which contractors can price the individual items of work and submit their tender for the project.
Bill of Quantities Purposes
The main purpose of bills of quantities is for tendering and to support a contract in the traditional and proven means of securing a lump-sum price for carrying out the building works for the client.
All contractors tendering for the project are able to price the work on exactly the same information which eliminates the risk of any errors in quantifying the construction work and allows for fairer competition overall.
Bills of Quantities also serve the following main purposes:
Better comparison and analysis of tenders received
Subcontractor and material enquiries
Cost planning
Value engineering
Improved cost control
Cost reporting
Valuations for interim payments
Valuations of variations
Ordering of materials
Final accounts
Our Bills of Quantities service
The Bills of quantities which we provide include work measured in accordance with standard methods of measurement including SMM7, NRM, ARM etc and which generally include the following main sections
Preliminaries setting out the employer’s requirements and the contractors obligations in carrying out the construction work
Preambles or specifications which define the quality and standards of materials and workmanship
Measured works which sets out the descriptions and quantities of work to be undertaken by the contractor for which the contractor can price the individual items of work
Provisional sums and provisional quantities which cover work not completely designed at the time of preparing the contract bills.
Dayworks section for the contractor to insert his preferred mark up for overheads and profit on any work which cannot be valued using traditional methods and rates in the bill of quantities.
Contractors design portions of work for which the contractor is required to design and construct such as MEP works, steelwork connections, waterproofing, below ground drainage etc
Collateral warranties for agreement with a third party outside of the main contract, in order for an architect, contractor, or sub-contractor to warrant to a funder, tenant or purchaser it has undertaken its duties under a construction contract. These can generally be required from sub-contractors who are required to design and construct specific portions of the work under the contractors design portion and professional indemnity insurance required.
Please visit our other articles if you would like to find out more about the types of bills of quantities in construction which we provide our clients with and also more information on our bills of quantities services for our clients.
If you have a project for which you require accurate and detailed bills of quantities, schedule of works or builders quantities for estimating and tendering then please feel free to contact us regarding your project requirements.
bills of quantities
method of measurement
Our bills of quantities can be prepared using (SMM7), New Rules of Measurement (NRM 2) and Agreed Rules of Measurement 4
builders quantities
We prepare builders quantities for contractors and sub-contractors tendering on projects