Bill of quantities (BoQ)
On this page
| Where | Project sidebar → Drafts (Чернови) for an investor in budgeting, Offers (Оферти) for a contractor, Budget (Бюджет) after acceptance. Editor URLs: /projects/{project}/drafts/{boq}, /projects/{project}/offers/{boq}, /projects/{project}/budget/{boq} |
|---|---|
| Who can | Project permission Offers (Оферти): View to open and export, Edit to change. Budget drafts also need Budget preparation (Изготвяне на бюджет). Resource analysis needs Resource analysis (Ресурсен анализ). The BoQ editor itself is on the Free plan; resource analysis, budget drafts and the company library need a paid plan and a licensed seat. |
| Related | Procurement: offer requests and offers, Contracts and changes, Company library (nomenclatures), Schedule |
What a BoQ is in BuildColab
A bill of quantities (BoQ) is a table of construction and installation works (СМР) with quantities and prices. In BuildColab the words "offer" and "BoQ" describe the same document from two angles: the offer is the commercial proposal, the BoQ is the table of positions and prices behind it. The same structure sits behind an investor's budget draft, the accepted investment budget, a contractor's offer, an offer request sent to subcontractors and a signed contract.
Every BoQ in BuildColab has the same building blocks:
| Term | Bulgarian UI word | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Category (subsection) | Подобект / категория | A folder in the BoQ tree. It can hold positions and other categories, nested to any depth. Its total is the sum of everything below it. Two categories on the same level cannot share a name. |
| Position (work item) | СМР / позиция | One line of the BoQ: description, unit of measure, quantity, unit price, value and an optional note. |
| Unit of measure | Мерна единица | For example m, m², m³, pcs, kg. Units come from a shared list. A unit you type that is not on the list is saved as your company's own unit until BuildColab maps it to a standard one. |
| Unit price | Ед. цена | The price of one unit of the position. It comes from the position's resource analysis, or it is typed directly as a "direct price". |
| Value | Стойност | Quantity × unit price, rounded to cents. |
| Resource analysis | Ресурсен анализ | The breakdown of a unit price into materials, labour, machinery and services, plus additional costs and profit. |
| Task template | Шаблон на задача | A company-library item for a type of work. It collects the price history of every position it was used on, across projects. |
| Filter category (label) | Филтър-категория / етикет | A free tag you attach to positions regardless of where they sit in the tree, used for filtering, totals and contracting packages. |
| Version | Версия | A locked snapshot of the whole BoQ. After you lock a version, the next change opens a new version automatically. |
Where BoQs live, by role
Which BoQ pages you see in a project depends on your company's role and the project phase:
- Investor, budgeting phase: the Drafts (Чернови) page lists your budget drafts. You build and compare drafts, then accept one as the investment budget. See BoQ documents and versions list.
- Contractor or subcontractor, offering phase: the Offers (Оферти) page lists your offers, grouped by the offer request they answer. See Preparing and submitting an offer.
- Execution phase: the Budget (Бюджет) page, or Contract with client (Договор с възложител) for a contractor, shows the accepted budget or signed contract as a read-only BoQ. It is changed only through change orders. See Investment budget.
Typical sequence
- Create a BoQ document: a new budget draft on the Drafts page, or a new offer on the Offers page. See BoQ documents and versions list.
- Fill it: import the client's Excel file, or build categories and positions by hand. See Importing a BoQ from Excel and Working in the BoQ editor.
- Lock the received quantities as the base with Finish base (Завърши база), so every later change can be traced back. See Versions, comparing and locking.
- Organize the positions with filter categories, search and copy/move. See Labels, filters, search, copy and move.
- Price each position with a resource analysis, reusing earlier analyses through task templates. See Resource analysis and Task templates and price history.
- Set additional costs and profit, and check the totals. See Profit, additional costs and totals.
- Send parts of the BoQ to subcontractors as offer requests and compare their offers. See Creating and sending an offer request.
- Save a version, then send the offer to the client or accept the budget. Export an Excel copy at any time. See Exporting.
- The BoQ name at the top is also a switcher: click it to open another BoQ of the same project.
- The Search in BoQ (Търси в КСС) box finds positions by description or note.
- The action bar groups the BoQ actions into families: Related, Exchange, Analysis and Edit.
- The Total value (Обща стойност) shows the grand total of the BoQ.
- A category row shows the category name and its total; click it to expand or collapse it.
- A position row shows description, unit, quantity, unit price, value and note. Ticking its checkbox opens the resource analysis panel.
Pages in this section
- BoQ documents and versions list — the Drafts page: creating, renaming, duplicating, deleting and accepting BoQ documents, and the version history of each.
- Working in the BoQ editor — every column, right-click menu item, editing rule and keyboard shortcut of the editor.
- Labels, filters, search, copy and move — filter categories, saved filters, search, selection, copy/paste and drag and drop.
- Resource analysis — building a unit price from materials, labour, machinery and services.
- Task templates and price history — linking positions to templates and reusing analyses from earlier projects.
- Profit, additional costs and totals — every formula behind unit prices, values and totals, with a worked example.
- Versions, comparing and locking — finishing the base, saving versions, viewing and comparing versions and drafts.
- Importing a BoQ from Excel — the file format, column mapping, validation and saving an import.
- Exporting — the export wizard, the standard layout and the resource analysis export.
Common questions
Is an offer the same thing as a BoQ?
Yes. In BuildColab an offer is a BoQ: "offer" is the commercial proposal and "BoQ" is the table of positions and prices inside it. Budget drafts, budgets and contracts are BoQs too, and they open in the same BoQ editor.
Why don't I see the Drafts page?
The Drafts (Чернови) entry in the project sidebar appears only for the investor company of the project, in the budgeting phase (or in execution while a draft of the next budget is open), and only when your role has the Budget preparation (Изготвяне на бюджет) permission. Contractors work on the Offers page instead.
Can I use the BoQ editor on the Free plan?
Yes. The BoQ editor, import and export work on the Free plan. Resource analysis, budget drafts and the company library (task templates, materials, labour, machinery) need a paid plan and a licensed seat. See Subscription, plans and billing.
Why can't I edit the budget or a signed contract?
An accepted investment budget and a signed contract's BoQ are locked so both parties keep the same numbers. Changes go through a change order. See Change orders and extensions.
Can BORO work on my BoQ?
Yes. The BORO assistant can read the BoQ, create categories and positions, edit resource analyses, apply analyses from history, set profit and import files. In the BORO panel, every change BORO proposes waits for your approval by default. See What BORO can do.
Related
In this section
The Drafts (Чернови) page is where an investor keeps the budget drafts of a project: each draft is a separate bill of quantities (BoQ) shown as a card with its number of positions and total value…
The BoQ editor is the screen where you build a bill of quantities (BoQ): you add categories and positions, set units, quantities and prices, move and copy rows, and lock versions. The same editor…
The BoQ editor has tools to find and organize positions in a large bill of quantities (BoQ): a text search, filter categories (labels you attach to positions regardless of the tree), saved filters, a…
A resource analysis (Bulgarian ресурсен анализ) explains how the unit price of one position in a bill of quantities (BoQ) is built: which materials, labor, machinery and services one unit of the work…
A task template (Bulgarian шаблон на задача) is a company-library item for one type of work, with a name and a unit, for example "Gypsum plastering of walls, m²". When you link positions of a bill of…
This page explains, in plain language, how BuildColab calculates every number in a bill of quantities (BoQ): the value of each resource, the additional costs per resource type, profit, the unit…
Every bill of quantities (BoQ) in BuildColab keeps versions. You lock the current version with Finish base or Save version; locked versions never change, and the next edit opens a new version…
Import loads an existing bill of quantities (BoQ) from an Excel file (.xlsx, or .xls) into a BoQ in BuildColab instead of typing it. BuildColab recognizes the columns and the category tree, you…
Export turns a bill of quantities (BoQ) into an Excel file (.xlsx) — to send to a client or subcontractor, for accounting or for the archive. A step-by-step wizard lets you write current prices into…