Joinery and millwork bills of quantities One list, priced by everyone the same way.

Itemised measured works

Structured by element or by section as the project requires.

Descriptions

Written to the measurement convention in use on the project, not to a house format.

Quantities with units

Measured consistently and to a stated basis.

Preliminaries and provisional items

Identified rather than absorbed into rates.

Inclusions, exclusions and assumptions

Separated and stated.

A priceable structure

One a quantity surveyor or estimator can work from directly, without rebuilding it first.

A materials list tells you what to buy. A bill of quantities tells several bidders how to price the same thing.

That difference changes how the document is written. Descriptions have to be unambiguous to someone who did not measure it. Items have to sit where the convention expects them, not where they happen to appear in the drawings. Provisional items have to be visible rather than buried, because a provisional sum absorbed into a rate destroys the comparison it exists to enable.

British and North American practice use different words for related things, and mixing them causes real confusion in pricing.

In UK and European practice this is joinery work, and the document is a bill of quantities prepared to an established measurement convention. In North American practice the equivalent function is more often served by a bill of materials or a Div 06 40 00 bid package, structured around the specification section rather than around measured works.

Preparation follows the convention your project actually uses. One is never relabelled as the other, and a US-format schedule is never presented as a BOQ.

Formally procured work in the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where the tender route assumes one. It also appears on larger North American packages where a common pricing basis across subcontractors matters more than speed.

Where a project does not require a BOQ, we will say so rather than preparing one because it was asked for by name.

Joinery firms bidding formally procured work. Contractors who need a common pricing basis across subcontractors. Consultants preparing a package for tender who need the measurement done properly rather than quickly.

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