Import a cost plan

Read their spreadsheet without retyping it

A bill arrives as somebody else’s spreadsheet. QScope reads it into the estimate, shows you everything before a single line is written, and checks the document against its own totals.

Rows become lines with reference, description, quantity, unit, rate and total
Every row read is accounted for in a reconciliation, so nothing goes missing on the way in
Nothing is written until you answer the review screen and press Write to the bill

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Import a cost plan

Import a cost plan · review

Priced items42

Items without a price2

Column headings recognisedyes

Value we computed from the items£774,500.00

PDF is not read yet, and that is a deliberate choice: a bill misread from a PDF is worse than a bill typed in by hand.

The arithmetic

The document checked against itself

A printed total is a claim, so the items are added back up and compared with what the document says.

Totals recomputed from the lines and set against the ones the file printed
A document whose own figures disagree is named as such before import
You decide what goes in with the difference in front of you

Import a cost plan

Import · checks on the way in

Value we computed from the items£774,500.00

Grand totalchecked, disagrees

Document disagrees with itself£1,300.00

The difference is shown before import, not discovered at the first valuation.

Re-import

The next issue in, without losing your edits

When a revised document arrives, its rows are matched to the ones already in the cost plan.

Your cost, your markup and the rows you struck out are kept
Description, quantity, unit, rate and reference are refreshed from the new document
The review card lists what was kept and what was replaced before anything is written

Import a cost plan

Already in this cost plan

Costkept

Mark-upkept

Struck-out rowskept struck out

Quantities and ratesrefreshed

To see exactly how two issues of the bill differ line by line, compare them in Model revisions.

Every other function on the Import a cost plan screen

18 functions the sections above do not cover, each as it works in the program.

Functions 1 to 9

01The Source document card shows the file, the sheets it was read from and the row the column headings came from.

02Each warning is listed with the row it comes from.

03You choose whether the file is the client bill of quantities or a subcontractor's bill before anything is written.

04Section names outside the NRM2 list are kept as written unless you choose to map them.

05Provisional sums and prime costs are kept as separate rows or left out, and never folded into a rate.

06On a re-import the screen reports which sections matched, which are ambiguous and which are new.

07When older rows carry an element nobody can attribute, you answer once whether to keep yours or take the document's, and the project remembers.

08The same answer can be set or changed on the Import tab before the next import.

09On a monitoring project the import offers to mark the estimate as the lender-approved budget.

Functions 10 to 18

10The file is read in your browser, and nothing reaches the project until you write it to the bill.

11The status line says how many items were read and from which sheets, and that nothing is written yet.

12Any other file type is refused with the list of spreadsheet types that work.

13In a workbook with several sheets, every sheet with a recognisable heading row is read.

14Every row read is accounted for, and if the count does not add up the screen tells you not to write the import.

15The import message names every gap it filled, such as a missing quantity written as 1 or a missing rate left blank.

16If the row count does not reconcile, nothing is written and the message says so.

17Valuation history and advances follow each line through renumbering, and the import reports what it matched.

18Writing the bill updates the contract sum and the draft valuations at once, without a separate step.

Who it is for

Four chairs, one valuation on the table

You are applying

You value it, and the certificate cuts it

You value the work line by line and submit the application. When the certificate lands short, the difference is argued line by line too, and your valuation is the evidence.

Applying for payment

the same measurement

You are certifying

You cut it, and you sign your name

You value the same lines from the other chair and issue the certificate. Every percentage you cut has to survive the question of why, a month or a year later.

Certifying payment

You are doing both

You value your own work, alone

You price it, you value it and you apply for it yourself, between site visits. The certificate still has to add up as if a surveyor had built it.

Doing both yourself

You are reporting

You certify value the lender pays on

You certify value in place so the lender can release the next tranche. The valuation is the same arithmetic; the reader was never on site.

Recommending a drawdown

The client, the architect and the tenderer are not on this list. They are the people you let in on a link: they see the one document you sent them, answer it, and that answer is written into the record. No account, no licence, no charge, on every plan.

FAQs

The questions this page raises most often, answered without a sales pitch at the end.

Excel (.xlsx, .xlsm, .xls) and CSV. PDF is not read yet.

The lines are added back up and compared with the totals the file printed. A document that disagrees with itself is shown as such before anything is written.

Yes. Rows are matched to the ones already there, your cost, markup and struck-out rows are kept, and the review card shows what was kept and what was replaced.

The lines are written into the cost plan, and the import itself updates the contract sum and the draft valuations. Issued valuations are not rewritten.

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