Glossary
What the construction terms and the app's own words mean — from BOQ and RA bill to committed cost, muster roll and place of supply.
Terms are grouped by letter. Each entry links to the page that explains it in full.
A
Actual cost — cost the job has really used: material issued to site, approved muster rolls, plant logs and certified subcontract bills. Compare committed cost. See Cost ledger.
Advance recovery — a mobilisation or material advance paid by the client, clawed back from each RA bill at the contract's recovery percentage. Never more than the advance still outstanding, nor more than is left of the bill. See RA bills.
Ageing — how long an invoice has been unpaid, counted from its due date (not its invoice date), in buckets of 0–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 90+ days. See Payments.
Award — the single action that turns a sent quotation into a contract and creates (or links) the project. The quotation becomes Won. See Contracts.
B
Bid BOQ — a priced bill of quantities prepared before the award, with no project yet. See Bills of quantities.
Blacklist — a vendor status that blocks new purchase orders and subcontracts with that vendor. A reason is required. See Vendors.
BOQ (bill of quantities) — the list of work items with unit, quantity and rate that a job is priced and billed on. See Bills of quantities.
BOQ revision — a frozen snapshot of a BOQ, taken when it is approved, so you can always see what was agreed at a point in time.
Breakdown hours — hours a machine on site could not work. Logged, but not charged to the project. See Equipment.
Budget — the job's planned cost, built from the BOQ at cost (material, labour, equipment, subcontract and overhead) — it carries no profit. See Budget.
C
Calibrate — setting a drawing sheet's scale from a dimension you know, so measurements on it come out in real units. See Takeoff.
Certification — the client's engineer allowing an RA bill, sometimes for less than you claimed. Revenue is recognised at this point. See RA bills.
Change order (variation) — an agreed change to the contract: more or less quantity, a new rate, a new item, or an omission. Its value is revised quantity × revised rate − original quantity × original rate. See Change orders.
Coefficient — in a rate analysis, how much of a resource one unit of output needs (e.g. bags of cement per cubic metre). See Rate analysis.
Committed cost — money promised but not yet spent: issued purchase orders and awarded subcontracts, excluding GST (input GST is recoverable). See Cost ledger.
Contract BOQ — the BOQ linked to the project at the award. RA bills are measured against it.
Cost head — the five buckets every cost falls in: material, labour, equipment, subcontract and overhead.
D
Defect liability period (DLP) — the period after completion during which the contractor must put right defects at its own cost. Retention is often released at its end.
Direct-charge material — material consumed the moment it arrives (ready-mix concrete, for example), so it is charged to the project on receipt rather than held in stock.
DPR (daily progress report) — the site diary for one project and one date: work done, manpower, plant, weather, hours lost and issues. One per project per day. See DPR.
G
GRN (goods receipt) — the record of a delivery against a purchase order. Posting it puts the material into stock — it becomes project cost only when issued to site. See Goods receipts.
Gross (taxable value) — the value of work certified on an RA bill before retention and recoveries. GST is charged on the gross, never on the net.
H
Heading line — a BOQ row that is only a title: no unit, quantity or rate.
Hold point — an inspection checklist item that must pass. If any hold point fails, the inspection fails. See Quality.
I
Idle hours — hours a machine stood on site available but unused. Idle time is charged — the machine was hired whether it worked or not. See Equipment.
Indent — another name for a material request.
Issue (to site) — moving material out of a store for use on the job. This is the moment material becomes project cost. See Stock movements.
L
LD (liquidated damages) — a pre-agreed deduction the client makes for late completion. Entered as a deduction on an RA bill.
Lead — an enquiry or tender you are chasing, before it becomes a client and a quotation. See Leads.
LTI (lost time injury) — a work injury that keeps someone off work for at least a shift. See Safety.
M
Man-day — one person on site for one full day. A half day counts as 0.5.
Material request — the site's request for material, approved by the Project Manager and then met from stock or bought. See Material requests.
Muster roll — the attendance register for one project, day and shift. Approving the day locks it and posts labour cost. See Labour.
N
NCR (non-conformance report) — a record that work does not meet the specification, tracked through corrective action to closure. See Quality.
Near miss — an event that could have hurt someone but did not. Worth recording — it is the cheapest lesson there is.
Net payable — what the client actually pays on an RA bill: gross, less retention, advance recovery, LD and other deductions.
O
Omission — a change order that removes work. The line's quantity goes to zero; the line is never deleted, so the history stays.
Output quantity — in a rate analysis, the quantity the build-up produces; the total is divided by it to give the unit rate.
P
Place of supply — the state where a supply is taxed. For construction it is the project site's state, which decides whether the invoice carries CGST + SGST (same state) or IGST (different state). See Tax invoices.
Plan set — an uploaded PDF of drawings; each page is a sheet. See Takeoff.
Provisional sum / prime cost — BOQ allowances for work or supply not yet fully defined.
Purchase-order approval threshold — the order value up to which a Procurement Manager may approve a PO; above it, a Company Admin must. See Purchase orders.
Q
Quotation revision — a new version of a sent quotation (R2, R3 …) that replaces the earlier one under the same number. See Quotations.
R
RA bill (running-account bill) — an interim bill claiming the work done to date against the contract BOQ. Each bill measures cumulatively; "this bill" is the difference from what was previously certified. See RA bills.
Rate analysis — the build-up of one item's rate from its resources × coefficients, plus overheads and profit. See Rate analysis.
Rate-only line — a BOQ line that quotes a rate without a quantity. It is excluded from totals.
Resource — anything you price or buy: a material, a labour trade, a machine, or a subcontract service. See Resources.
Retention — a percentage of each RA bill's gross held back by the client until the job (or the defect liability period) is complete. Subtracted from the payment, not from the taxable value. See RA bills.
Retention cap — the most retention that may be held in total, measured against the revised contract value.
Reversal entry — a negative entry that corrects the cost ledger. Ledger entries are never edited or deleted.
S
Short-close — closing an issued purchase order whose balance will never arrive.
Site store / central store — a store that belongs to one project's site, or one that serves the whole company. See Stores.
Snag — a defect found on site, pinned to a location, assigned to someone and tracked until it is verified and closed. See Snags.
Stale (rate analysis) — a rate analysis whose resource prices changed after it was last calculated. It is flagged, not changed — you recompute it when you choose. See Rate analysis.
Standard rate — the rate you estimate a resource at, as opposed to what you actually paid for it.
Subcontract (work order) — a package of work let to a subcontractor, measured and certified much like an RA bill in reverse. See Subcontracts.
Supplementary bill — an RA bill raised outside the normal sequence (a settled dispute, say). It is allowed while another bill is open.
T
TDS (tax deducted at source) — income tax deducted from payments to subcontractors and paid to the government on their behalf. See GST & TDS Agent.
Toolbox talk — a short safety briefing given to the crew at the start of work.
U
Unallocated (on account) — money received from a client but not yet matched to an invoice. See Payments.
Utilisation — for plant: working hours ÷ (working + idle hours). Breakdown hours are left out. See Equipment.
W
Wastage — an allowance for material lost in use, added in a rate analysis — and a reason for a stock adjustment when material is lost or spoiled.
Weighted-average rate — a store's cost per unit of a material. It moves when stock is received; issuing stock does not change it.