Estimator

Registers interest on EstimateOne, downloads the drawing set and specification, records the revision of every sheet, and keeps an addenda register so late issues are picked up rather than priced against superseded drawings.

Measures quantities straight off the PDF drawings in Buildxact, Cubit or Bluebeam Revu — slab and footing volumes, wall and roof areas, linear metres of trenching and framing — keeping each measurement traceable back to its sheet.

Structures the takeoff into a bill of quantities by trade section following the Australian Standard Method of Measurement, so the builder, the quantity surveyor and the subcontractors are all reading the same items in the same order.

Splits the job into trade packages, writes the scope of works for each so inclusions and exclusions are unambiguous, and issues invitations with the drawings and specification extracts through EstimateOne to the builder's subcontractor list.

Follows up invited subcontractors before the close date, then levels the quotes that arrive onto a common scope — identifying what one has excluded that another has priced, and where two trades have both allowed for the same work.

Prices supply items from current wholesaler price lists and the builder's negotiated rates, applies labour constants by trade, and refreshes the rate library from actual invoices on completed jobs rather than carrying stale rates forward.

Builds the preliminaries schedule against the construction programme: site sheds and amenities, temporary power and water, fencing and hoarding, scaffold and crane hire, waste removal, supervision weeks and the insurances the contract requires.

Sets out prime cost items and provisional sums separately — tapware, appliances, floor coverings, unknown ground conditions — with the allowance and the basis for it, so the client sees clearly what is priced and what is only an allowance.

Writes the qualifications register that accompanies the tender: what has been assumed about ground conditions, site access, working hours and authority approvals, and what is expressly excluded, so the builder isn't caught by scope the drawings only implied.

Assembles the submission to the tender documents' requirements — priced schedule, indicative programme, methodology statement, company documents — and hands the completed pricing to the builder, who sets the margin, signs the tender and lodges it.

Prices variations from site instructions and marked-up drawings, showing labour, materials and plant separately with the contract's agreed margin, ready for the builder to issue as a formal variation under the HIA or Master Builders contract.

After a win, breaks the successful estimate into cost codes and loads it as the job budget in Buildxact or Databuild, so the contract administrator has committed costs, budget and forecast in one structure from day one.

Compares actual costs on completed jobs back to the original estimate line by line and reports where the estimate under-allowed, so the next tender for similar work starts from what the builder actually spent.