Construction cost and planning guides
BOQ pricing, unit rates, quantity take-off, scheduling, contracts and payment, with a free template and fair comparisons.
Guides
Original guides for contractors and quantity surveyors in Saudi Arabia and the region. Each one states its assumptions and its limits.
- Input preparation
Prepare a BOQ for a reviewable pricing exercise
A practical checklist for quantities, units, scope, rate assumptions and review before an Excel or CSV BOQ pricing trial.
Read the guide - Human review
Review an AI construction output before it informs a decision
A source-first review workflow for quantities, prices, schedules and document summaries, with visible uncertainty and human approval.
Read the guide - Planning preparation
Prepare the inputs for a reviewable construction plan
Define work packages, calendars, dependencies and resource assumptions before reviewing a generated construction schedule.
Read the guide - Pricing guide
BOQ pricing: a practical guide for contractors
How to price a bill of quantities step by step: scope, measurement, unit-rate build-up, overheads, risk and review, with links to deeper guides.
Read the guide - Pricing guide
Unit rate analysis: build a rate you can defend
Build a construction unit rate from labour, materials, plant and subcontract, with a worked example in invented figures and a review checklist.
Read the guide - Contracts and payment
Interim payment certificates: prepare and review a monthly claim
What goes into an interim payment application, how retention and advance recovery work, and how to keep cost, certified value and cash apart.
Read the guide - Quantity take-off
Quantity take-off from drawings: manual, software and AI
Compare manual, on-screen and AI-assisted quantity take-off, what each needs from the drawings, and how to check quantities before pricing.
Read the guide - Planning
Build a construction schedule from a BOQ
Turn BOQ quantities into activities, durations and logic: WBS, productivity, calendars, the critical path and an XER file for Primavera P6.
Read the guide - Contracts and payment
FIDIC contract review checklist for contractors
The clauses to read first in a FIDIC Red Book contract: notices and claims, variations, payment, time, and the Particular Conditions that change them.
Read the guide - Templates
Free BOQ pricing template (Excel)
A free Excel template for pricing a bill of quantities: a unit-rate build-up on every line and a summary with overheads, profit and VAT.
Read the guide - Saudi Arabia
Construction estimating and BOQ pricing in Saudi Arabia
What changes when you price a BOQ for a Saudi project: VAT, Arabic BOQs, the Saudi Building Code, public tenders on Etimad, calendars and price sources.
Read the guide - Comparison
CAIS and Togal.AI: how they differ
A factual comparison of CAIS and Togal.AI for contractors: what each does, inputs, outputs, pricing and languages, from each company’s own pages.
Read the guide - Comparison
CAIS and Kreo: how they differ
A factual comparison of CAIS and Kreo for contractors and quantity surveyors: inputs, outputs, BIM, pricing and regions, from each company’s own pages.
Read the guide - Comparison
AI scheduling and Primavera P6: draft fast, control in P6
How an AI-drafted programme and Primavera P6 work together: what P6 does, what AI can draft from a BOQ, and how to review an XER before it becomes a baseline.
Read the guide - Glossary
Construction cost glossary: BOQ, QTO and contract terms
Plain definitions of the terms used in quantity surveying, pricing, planning and contracts, with the Arabic term for each.
Read the guide