Quantity takeoff: measuring in the units you buy and pay in, and keeping the measurement
- Work order total
- $863.16
- Labour
- $510
- Parts, marked up
- $288
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Jobcardo publishes no tax rate, no wage figure and no trade standard: the rate, the markup and the tax on the parts line are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
A quantity takeoff is the measurement step of an estimate, taken before any price is attached: how much of each material and each operation the drawings actually contain. It is a separate discipline from pricing because the errors are different in kind. A pricing error moves the number a little; a takeoff error moves whole elements, and the most expensive estimating mistakes in construction are almost always things that were never measured at all.
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Measure in the units you buy and pay in
Concrete in cubic yards, board in sheets, framing in linear feet by size, paint in square feet, labour in hours by operation. A takeoff recorded in purchase and payment units converts into both a price and an order without a second calculation, which is where transcription errors come from.
Record where every quantity came from
Note the drawing, room or elevation behind each figure. When the scope changes, only the affected quantities are re-measured, and when somebody queries the bid you can show the measurement rather than defend a total.
Keep the takeoff when the estimate becomes a job
The quantities are what the material order, the subcontractor scope and the progress claim refer back to. Thrown away at bid time, the job runs on the price alone and the first site question, how many were allowed, has no answer.
Quantity takeoff: common questions
Is a takeoff the same as an estimate? No. The takeoff is the quantities; the estimate is those quantities priced with waste, overhead, margin and tax applied. Two estimators with the same takeoff can legitimately produce very different prices.
Should waste be added in the takeoff or the pricing? Keep the measured quantity clean and apply waste as a stated allowance in the pricing. Mixing them makes it impossible to check the measurement or to compare your allowance against what you actually returned.
What is digital takeoff? Measuring on screen from a PDF or model with the software totalling lengths, areas and counts. It is faster, less error prone than a scale rule, and it keeps a record of what was measured, which is the part that matters later.
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Keeping what you raise
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