The 600 line BOQ problem: what high line count tenders do to an estimating team under deadline
Six hundred priced lines, three tenders open, and the client wants the number on Friday. Sound familiar?
A large bill of quantities is not slow because of the arithmetic. It is slow because most lines need a decision before they can carry a rate: which rate applies, whether the line as written matches the scope, and whether the supplier quote in front of you covers the same thing the line describes. Hundreds of lines price themselves in minutes. The week goes to the handful that cannot be priced at all.
Sorting the lines into those that price from a known rate, those waiting on a supplier, and those that cannot be priced as written is mechanical reading. Hand the BOQ and the quotes to Elora Grid and it returns that split with each line cited to its source. Which rate to apply stays with your estimator.
Why does a 600 line BOQ take days rather than hours?
Because line count is not the workload. Pricing a line from a rate you already hold takes seconds, and hundreds of lines in a big BOQ are exactly that.
The time goes to the minority of lines that are not ready to price. A line whose wording does not match anything in the drawings. A quantity in metres against a supplier who quotes per run. A description so thin that two estimators would price it differently. Those lines do not take longer to calculate; they take longer to decide.
What actually consumes the time?
Four things, and only one of them looks like estimating. Chasing supplier quotes that have not arrived. Matching quote lines to BOQ lines when the supplier and the client describe the same item in different words. Reconciling a quantity or a unit that disagrees with the drawings. Deciding what a thin line description actually includes.
The last one is the expensive one, because it usually cannot be decided alone. It goes to an engineer, or it becomes a clarification to the client, and either way the line sits open while the deadline moves closer.
Where do errors enter a large BOQ?
Wherever a number is moved by hand. A rate transcribed from a supplier email into the wrong row. A quantity carried across with the supplier's unit rather than the client's. An item priced in two sections because the same scope appears twice under different wording.
These errors are quiet. Nothing fails, nothing looks wrong, and the total is plausible. They surface after award, when the delivery team finds the scope was priced once and required twice.
How do you attack a big BOQ under deadline?
Sort before you price. Split the lines into the three bands in the table below, then work the bands in parallel instead of working down the sheet in order. The known rates get applied. The supplier lines go out as one consolidated RFQ rather than a trickle, and the problem lines reach whoever can decide them on day one instead of day four.
That sorting is reading work: every line matched against the scope, the drawings and the quotes you already hold. Elora Grid returns the sorted BOQ with each line traced to the document and page it was matched against, and the unpriceable lines listed with the reason. The rates, the levelling and the final number stay with your estimator.
Three kinds of BOQ line
| Kind of line | What it needs | What blocks it |
|---|---|---|
| Priced from a known rate | Matching to your price book and applying the rate | Nothing, unless the wording hides a scope difference |
| Waiting on a supplier | An RFQ out, and the quote mapped back to the line | Supplier response time, and quotes worded differently from the BOQ |
| Cannot be priced as written | A decision: an engineer's call or a clarification to the client | Thin descriptions, unit and quantity conflicts with the drawings, scope that appears twice |
- 01Sort the whole BOQ before pricing anything. Split every line into known rate, waiting on supplier, or cannot be priced as written.
- 02Send one consolidated RFQ, not a trickle. Every supplier line goes out on day one, so response time runs in parallel with your own pricing.
- 03Route the problem lines immediately. Each one goes to an engineer for a decision or to the client as a clarification, inside the question period.
- 04Apply the known rates in bulk. The largest band is also the fastest; clear it while the other two are still moving.
- 05Check units and duplicated scope before totalling. Compare each priced line's unit against the drawings, and search for the same scope described twice.
- 06Record what each rate came from. Quote reference, page and validity date against every supplier line, so the number can be defended later.
Common questions
How long should pricing a large BOQ take?
Long enough to resolve the lines that cannot be priced as written, which is the part nobody can estimate up front. Count those lines first, because they set the duration. The lines that price from a known rate barely affect it, however many of them there are.
Should you price a BOQ line you do not understand?
Not silently. Either lodge a clarification while the question period is open, or price it and state the assumption you priced against, subject to what the conditions of tender allow. An unstated assumption inside a priced line is the variation argument you will have after award.
What is the most common error in a big bill of quantities?
Unit and quantity mismatches between the supplier's quote and the client's line, closely followed by the same scope priced twice under different wording in two sections. Both are transcription-level failures, and both survive every check that only looks at whether the total is plausible.
Can Elora Grid sort a BOQ for you?
Yes. Hand it the bill of quantities, the drawings and the supplier quotes you hold, and it returns each line matched to its source, the supplier lines mapped to their quotes, and the lines that cannot be priced as written listed with the reason, each cited to document and page.