Initial set up of Bill of Quantities includes:

Set the BOQ parameters as needed.

Resources are the master list of "things that are needed to build a property". The resources hold the details that are used as defaults for various fields on the BOQ detail lines.

Resources can be linked to one or more of the following: a material commodity code, a subcontract trade code or a plant commodity code. These are used when raising orders through Procurement.

The resource can also hold default details for various fields including which of the six (or fewer depending on how many have been set up) cost categories apply to the selected resource.

All bill items within BOQ are essentially Resources, resources exist for the purpose of compiling a bill and being able order from that, giving a clear outline of where you are in the build process and being able to accurately report back to the CVR.

Bill Resources are set up in BOQ > Setup > Maintenance, this in essence is your library where you can add or retire resources. An example of what the Bill Resource Library looks like is shown below.

Each Resource is set up to either be a Material or Subcontract element, with everything else falling into the ‘OT’ or ‘Other’ category.

Each Resource must be associated to a package, as a Material Resource, a Material Package can only be selected, the same logic applies if the resource is a Subcontract.

To add a resource, the ADD button must be selected from within the BOQ Resource screen.

you are then presented with the following screen where you can detail information about the resource that you are going to add.

The first 4 characters of the resource should be the cost head that will be associated to it, whilst the next 4 characters following the hyphen are unique identifiers.

Example Below;

We will now add a resource to the library following the previous example of ‘Quoins Material’

Our Resource will be a new red Quoin brick following the same cost head and commodity structure as HA12-0001, as the Quoin procurement process would be exactly the same, the payment stages associated will also mimic HA12-0001.

There are a number of different options when creating a new resource, some of which exist as tick boxes to the right hand side of the main screen.

template Dependant – this allows you to use tokens within the Description, tokens such as $vud_name$ are fields that exist on the ‘vud’ table, more fields on this table can be found by doing a search of ‘vud’ in System > System Enquiry > Database Enquiry.

Substitute – allows the ‘on the fly’ swop out of resources of similar type/price, this allows you to swop an item such as a Red Quoins Brick with potentially a Dark Red Quoins Brick.

Override Description – Allows you, up to the point of ordering to change the description.

Once you have selected the quantity unit and specified any material waste, you can then assign the resource to a category type, i.e Material or Subcontract.

in this case I have ticked Material, no default price needs to be given at this stage, the price unit, status and type need to be filled out.

Commodity selection is done using the etcetera lookup, like cost heads, commodities are formed based on the cost head structure so the first four characters will be related cost head.

As the first four characters of the commodity, Resource and Cost head are the same, within the ‘other details’ section, in this case the cost head should be ‘HA12’. Selecting this will automatically bring back the payment stage information set up against the cost head selected.

Estimating section defaults to ‘STD’ as none other exists, you have the ability now to assign a default material package.

once you are happy with the information against the resource click save, this then publishes it to the library.

Use Configuration to specify which cost categories are relevant to Bill of Quantities, and whether costing is determined by the bill structure or the commodity codes linked to resources.

The BQ parameters CATMAT, CATPLT and CATSUB determine which of the cost categories represent material, plant and subcontract costs.

Standard variants cater for potential variations to the standard specification for a standard or development template. Examples include: a change of elevational treatment from all brick to half rendered; a change of roof from gable to hipped; a change of internal specification from open market to social housing, a change of all ironmongery to luxury quality, etc.

Variants allow you to maintain a single bill for a template containing the possible variations, rather than have to setup multiple templates.

You can specify which variants should not be used together on the same lot. For example, a lot might have standard or deluxe sanitary ware, but not both.

You specify which variants are relevant to each template, then for each variant, you build up a list of items that are added to or omitted from the template if that variant is used.

In the following example a full render variant has been setup with no conflicts.

In the next example, a half render variant has been set up with Full Render Variant moved to the Conflicts With selected box. By doing this the system is being configured so that the front elevation of a house cannot be both full and half rendered.

You can have as many conflicts as you need to set up against a variant, this allows you to be able to control what items can be varied and what cannot.