What does a price book contain?
A price book contains one priced entry per defined unit of work, so an estimator can build a bid by selecting rates rather than deriving each price from first principles. A typical line carries a description of the task, the unit of measure (per metre, per item, per hour, per square metre), and the rate, and a detailed price book breaks that rate into its labor, material and equipment components, often with a crew and productivity assumption behind it. The best price books also record where each rate came from and when it was last reviewed, because a rate with no source and no date is a number you cannot defend. In short, a price book turns scattered pricing knowledge into a structured, reusable dataset: every unit of work you commonly quote, priced once and kept current.
What is the difference between a price book, a rate library and a unit price book (UPB)?
These names describe related collections of reusable pricing data. A company rate library records its own parts, labour, plant and allowances. A commercial unit price book provides a published pricing basis used in some estimating and Job Order Contracting arrangements. Keep the source, date, inclusions and adjustment basis clear; company costs, supplier offers and published industry charges are different datasets.
How is a price book used to build a bid, and what is a coefficient?
A price book is used to build a bid by pricing each item of scope against its matching rate, then applying adjustments for the specific job. In everyday estimating that adjustment is the estimator's judgment: location, access, risk, current supplier pricing and margin. In US Job Order Contracting (JOC), the adjustment is formalised as a coefficient (or adjustment factor): the contractor bids a single multiplier against the whole unit price book, where a coefficient of 1.00 means the work is done at book price, 1.15 means 115% of book (a 15% uplift for overhead, profit and conditions), and 0.90 means 90% of book. Either way the price book supplies the base numbers and the estimator supplies the judgment on top. That division is the point of a price book: it makes the repeatable part of pricing fast and consistent, so effort goes into the parts of the bid that genuinely need a decision.
How do you keep a price book accurate?
You keep a price book accurate by treating it as a living dataset with an owner, a review cycle and a source for every rate, not a spreadsheet that ages quietly in a shared drive. Three disciplines keep it trustworthy. First, date and source every rate, so anyone using it can see when it was last confirmed and where it came from. Second, review on a cycle and on trigger, refreshing rates on a set cadence and whenever a real supplier quote or a delivered job shows the book is drifting from the market. Third, feed it from actuals: when a job completes, compare the priced rates against what the work actually cost and correct the book, so it converges on how you really price rather than on a guess. A stale price book is worse than none, because it carries the authority of a system while quietly pricing today's bid on last year's costs.
How does a price book show up in a tender, and where does it go wrong?
The price book supplies reference rates for your estimate; a current supplier quote may have a different scope, validity or price basis. Elora Grid's Rates library keeps company part and labour costs available across projects and supports spreadsheet imports, including supplier workbooks. Check interpreted rows, units, quantities, currency and source dates before pricing. Compare supplier returns against the actual package scope and record any adjustment; a stored rate is not a current supplier commitment.
What should you review after a Rates import?
Check the import summary and any rows that need review. Confirm product descriptions, units, quantity breaks, currency, effective dates and whether labour or plant rates are standard or variation rates. Keep allowances separate from firm unit prices. Preserve the supplier or workbook reference so another estimator can understand the basis of the number.