Practical guidance on cost, BOQs and commercial control.
Articles from our quantity surveyors on tendering, measurement, cost management and the commercial side of construction.
Is Your Tender Package Ready for a BOQ? A Contractor’s Document Checklist
You’ve decided you need a Bill of Quantities. Good call, it’s the right document for getting comparable tender prices back from contractors. But here’s the question that gets skipped far too often: is your project information actually ready for someone to measure it? Send a BOQ out for pricing on the back of an incomplete […]
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BOQ vs Quantity Take-Off vs Cost Estimate: Which Deliverable Do You Need?
“Can you send us a BOQ?” “Actually, I just need a take-off.” “Or maybe a rough estimate is fine for now.” If you’ve ever been on either end of that conversation, you’ll know how often these three terms get used interchangeably, even though they’re genuinely different deliverables, built for different purposes, at different stages of […]
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When a Small Contractor Needs Commercial Support: Project Help, Overflow Capacity, or an In-House Hire?
There’s a particular kind of pressure that builds up quietly in a small contracting business. The work is coming in, which is good. But the commercial side, pricing, cost tracking, variations, final accounts, is starting to eat into time that should be going toward running the job. You’re not quite at the point of needing […]
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Outsourcing Your Quantity Surveying: How Remote QS Support Cuts Costs Without Cutting Quality
There’s a moment in a lot of construction businesses where the workload and the headcount stop matching up. Too much QS work for one person to handle, not quite enough to justify hiring a second full-time surveyor, and a growing pile of take-offs, cost reports, and tender documents sitting in the queue regardless. If that […]
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Retention in Construction Contracts: How to Protect Your Cash Flow
Ask any contractor about retention and you’ll usually get a slight sigh before the answer. It’s one of the most standard parts of a construction contract, and also one of the most consistent sources of cash flow frustration on site. Money that’s rightfully earned, sitting withheld for months, sometimes years, often released later than it […]
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How Much Does a Quantity Surveyor Cost in Ireland?
It’s one of the first practical questions anyone asks once they’ve decided they actually need a quantity surveyor. You’ve got the budget concerns, the tender to price, or the cost plan to build, but before any of that, there’s a more immediate one sitting in your inbox: what is this going to cost me? Fair […]
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Value Engineering: How to Cut Construction Costs Without Cutting Corners
“Value engineering” has a bit of a reputation problem. Say it in a design meeting and someone will inevitably wince, half expecting it to mean cheaper materials, a stripped-back spec, and a building that looks like it was built to a different budget than the one everyone agreed. That reputation isn’t fair, and it isn’t […]
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Construction Cost Management: How to Stop Budget Overruns Before They Start
Ask any developer or contractor what keeps them up at night and cost overruns will come up fast. Not the big, dramatic disasters either, more the slow creep. A few provisional sums that firm up higher than expected. A programme extension that quietly adds weeks of preliminaries. A variation here, a design change there. None […]
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Preliminaries in Construction Explained (And Why They Cost More Than You Think)
If you’ve ever looked at a construction budget and wondered what “preliminaries” actually covers, you’re not alone. It’s one of those line items that sits near the top of every bill of quantities, often carrying a bigger number than people expect, and rarely gets explained properly before it lands on the page. Preliminaries are one […]
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Cost Estimation in Construction: How the Numbers Are Really Worked Out
Ask most people how a construction cost estimate is put together and you’ll get a shrug, or a guess involving a calculator and a bit of experience. In reality, cost estimation is a structured process, and understanding how it actually works is one of the best things you can do before you commit to any […]
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Provisional Sums in Construction: The Line Item That Quietly Blows Budgets
Every construction budget has one. A single line, sitting quietly in the bill of quantities, that looks harmless enough. “Provisional Sum: €15,000.” It’s easy to skim past it, nod, and move on to the next item. That’s exactly how it catches people out. Provisional sums are one of the most misunderstood parts of a construction […]
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The Construction Tender Process: How to Price Work and Protect Your Margin
Every contractor knows the feeling. A tender lands in the inbox, the deadline is tight, and somewhere between the drawings, the specs, and the endless addenda, you have to turn all of it into one number. Get that number wrong and the consequences are immediate. Price too high and you don’t win the job. Price […]
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How Much Does It Cost to Build a House in Ireland? A Cost-Per-Square-Metre Breakdown
So you’re thinking about building your own home. Maybe you’ve got a site already, or you’re still eyeing one up on Daft. Either way, there’s one question that’s probably keeping you up at night more than any other: what is this actually going to cost me? You’ve probably heard wildly different numbers already. A neighbor […]
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Post-Contract Quantity Surveying: Keeping Commercial Control from Award to Final Account
Winning the contract feels like the hard part is over. It rarely is. The tender is priced, the contract is signed, and then the real test begins. Design changes land. The programme slips. Material prices move. A subcontractor underperforms. The ground throws up something nobody surveyed for. Every one of those events has a number […]
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Pre-Contract Quantity Surveying Services: The Key to Cost Certainty and Project Success
A construction project’s financial success isn’t determined on site. It’s established long before the first contractor arrives. With tender price inflation continuing to impact the industry, relying on rough estimates and assumptions can expose your project to significant financial risk. Professional Pre-Contract Quantity Surveying Services provide a clear commercial roadmap from the earliest stages of […]
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