The best QS in the world can price a job for you but that doesn’t mean you are going to make any money.
Sounds like an odd way to start a conversation….. surely if you use the best QS in the world you are guaranteed to make money?
Nup!!!
It totally depends on how you run that job, and if you use the info from the quantity surveying exercise.
This is such a good jumping off point to understanding that initial price quantity surveying is providing you with business acumen to run a job effectively, but if that QS is not in charge of your site, how on earth can they make sure that you are doing so?
And how on earth can you then blame that QS because you didn’t make the money you thought you would make when you do the final accounts?
Info is key
Just because a builder buys the best hammer in the world, doesn’t make him the best builder, he’s gotta know how to use it!
Knowing how to use the info is not hard, it really isn’t. The key information you want to make sure you are clear about is;
The labour, how much is against each task?
How are you planning on keeping track of it?
A nifty way to do that is to make sure the foreman has a copy of the labour for each task on site, and that a quick reconcile of detailed time sheets against the labour list is done each week.
This will highlight all sorts of useful information, like if a homeowner changed their mind halfway through a job being done and only the apprentice was on site, hello variation!
Or maybe someone said they were doing something, but went and had a nap under a tree in the backyard instead…..
Maybe a big mistake was made which means that your team needs some extra training. It could even mean that your team is simply a bit slower than the average in some areas.
All good stuff….
But you can only do something about it if you know, and you won’t know unless you are using that lovely QS info from when you won the job in the first place.
Documenting the Info
Tags and clarifications should cover every grey area detailing what has been assumed, every item swapped from the specs and why, every potential contingent issue and what assumptions you have made or are tagging your price from.
They should pull through any tags from your suppliers or sub-contractors, provisional and PC sums used that weren’t specified in the contract docs, the list just goes on and on and on.
You may think they are going to scare off a client, but they are there to protect both you and them and to set the tone for the whole job!
There’s more – so much more!