QScope

How it works

One project, from the first estimate to the final account

You set the job up once. After that the estimate, the tender, the contract, every monthly valuation, the notices, the final account and, where there is a lender, every drawdown work from the same record. Nothing is retyped between stages. Start wherever your job is today.

Start free for 30 days See the interactive demo

30 days free, no card.

Estimate total, contract sum, valuation lines with approved variations, final account; lender tranches and drawdowns from the valuation linesEstimate total£1,934,480Contract sum£1,934,480Valuation lines12 valuationsFinal account£1,977,030Approved variations+£51,830Lendertranches and drawdowns The same record from estimate to final accountEstimate total£1,934,480Contract sum£1,934,480Valuation lines12 valuationsFinal account£1,977,030Variations+£51,830Lenderdrawdowns
The figure you price is the figure you value, certify and agree.

Step 1 · Once per project, about ten minutes

Tell QScope what the job is and which side you are on

The contract form, your role and the payment periods decide every payment date and the name of the payment document. You confirm the periods from your own contract. QScope fills in none, apart from the FIDIC defaults of 28 and 56 days, which you confirm or change.

  • Contract form: JCT, NEC3/4, the Scheme, RIBA, FIDIC or your own contract
  • Your role: contractor applying for payment, quantity surveyor certifying for the client or preparing the contractor's applications, or monitoring surveyor for a lender
  • Contract sum (or let the estimate set it), retention rate, valuation cycle and day of the month, and the practical completion date
  • No valuation or Final Certificate can be issued until the contract form is chosen and the payment periods are confirmed

What comes out

A project with the right payment dates and document name from the first page.

How the payment dates are counted
Settings: contract form, acting as, client, site and the payment periods

The four periods are typed from your Contract Particulars. Until they are confirmed, no statutory date is shown.

Step 2 · Once, revised as the design moves

Price it, or bring in the pricing you already have

Build the estimate line by line, or import the spreadsheet you priced in. Either way it becomes the starting point for everything after it.

  • The QScope library of 4,876 items on the NRM1 tree; the rates are always yours
  • Quantities measured on the line: length, width, height, number and deductions
  • Rates built up from labour, materials with waste, plant and subcontract
  • Markup on the whole estimate or one section, overheads and profit, and allowances for design development, risk and inflation
  • Excel or CSV import; a re-import shows what changed before anything is overwritten
  • A saved version of the cost plan sent by link: the client sees the full plan, a subcontractor only their package

What comes out

  • Bill of Quantities or Cost plan
  • Order of cost estimate

Who else takes part by link, free

  • Client
  • Consultants
How the cost estimate works
Estimate: sections and items with quantity, unit, rate and total

Every line carries its quantity and rate, and every section adds up to the project total.

Step 3 · Per package

Send it out to tender from the same lines

The enquiry is built from your estimate, so every bid comes back against your own item references.

  • Each bidder gets a personal link to price your scope, without seeing your rates
  • They price online or return an Excel file, and you are emailed when a bid lands
  • One tab per bidder, then Compare: up to eight bids matched by item reference
  • Gaps priced at the median of the other bids, the highest of them or your own rate, before any total is read
  • The levelled comparison saved to the project

What comes out

A levelled tender comparison saved to the project, showing the basis of every adjustment.

Who else takes part by link, free

  • Bidders
How tender comparison works
Tender comparison with three bids levelled

Demo Earthworks Ltd left two lines unpriced. Both gaps are priced before the totals are compared.

Step 4 · Once per contract and subcontract

Turn the price into a contract

The contract is filled from the project, so the sum, the parties and the dates are the ones you already have.

  • Client contract and subcontracts on 13 conditions, filled from the project; the client contract is for projects on your own contract
  • Parties, site and key dates read from the contract PDF into the settings
  • The payment schedule set in the contract
  • Sent for review and accepted online by link
  • Apply to All Certificates makes the estimate total the contract sum and rebuilds the draft valuations

What comes out

  • Contract for Works
  • Subcontract for Works

Who else takes part by link, free

  • Client
  • Subcontractors
How contracts work
Contracts: the client contract and the subcontract on the project, with type, other party, sum, status and date

The client contract is concluded and the subcontract with Demo Groundworks Ltd is a draft. Each party accepts on its own link.

Step 5 · Every valuation

Run the money, month by month

This is the step most teams lose a day to every month. The lines are already there, so the valuation is the work done this period and nothing else.

  • Value line by line by percentage or fixed sum; retention, previously certified and VAT calculated as you type
  • Approved variations become valuation lines; an instruction that changes cost with no variation is flagged
  • Advance payments recovered as the linked work is certified, materials on site added to the valuation, and agreed daywork sheets carried into the final account
  • Subcontract packages valued on their own retention and their own dates
  • Due date, payment notice, pay less notice and final date counted from your confirmed periods and printed on the documents; the Contract Register lists each certificate against its deadline
  • The client agrees the valuation, serves a notice or accepts a variation on the link, and the answer is written into the record
  • The dashboard shows what needs you, the next dates and cash in and out over 30 days; CVR, cash flow, extensions of time, loss and expense, programme, risk and site records sit beside it
  • Issued certificates are frozen, and every valuation, variation and contract setting change is in the audit trail

What comes out

  • Interim Application for Payment
  • Pay Less Notice
  • Variations Report
  • Cost Report

Who else takes part by link, free

  • Client
  • Contract administrator
  • Subcontractors
How client valuations work
A monthly valuation with its dates, lines and the amount due

Valuation 12, still a draft. Its dates are counted from the periods confirmed at set up.

Step 6 · Once, at completion and at the end of the rectification period

Close the job and get the retention back

Completion halves the retention and sets up its release, and the final account adds up from the same lines the valuations used.

  • Practical completion and sectional completion, with damages where they apply
  • Retention drops to half at practical completion, and the rest is released on the certificate of making good, or one year after practical completion unless you set your own release date
  • The schedule of defects at the end of the rectification period
  • The final account from the contract sum through every adjustment, each on its own line, to the final balance
  • The Final Account Agreement printed for signature

What comes out

  • Certificate of Practical Completion
  • Retention Release Certificate
  • Final Account
  • Final Account Agreement
How the final account works
Final account from the contract sum to the final balance

From the contract sum to the final balance, each adjustment on its own line.

Step 7 · Every drawdown, where there is a lender

Report to the lender from the same record

On a funded job the monitoring surveyor works from the facility, the site visits and the same commercial figures.

  • Facility terms and tranches read from the facility PDF, with conditions precedent added on each tranche
  • Site visits and evidence recorded against the tranche
  • Seven monitoring reports, including the drawdown recommendation
  • The lender approves or queries the tranche on its own screen; the borrower adds evidence and answers questions
  • The recommendation and its reasons are the monitoring surveyor's own, and their signature goes only on an issued document

What comes out

  • Initial appraisal report
  • Tranche drawdown recommendation
  • Cost to complete
  • Final report

Who else takes part by link, free

  • Lender
  • Borrower
How the facility monitor works
Monitoring dashboard for a development facility

The recommendation traces to the facility, the visits and the evidence filed against the tranche.

At every stage

What holds across all seven stages

Every party sees their own part

  • Guests are free and never count towards your plan
  • Each sees only what you share, cut on the server
  • The cost report and the risk register stay hidden from guests

Everything stays on the record

  • Documents carry your branding, never QScope's, 44 documents in all
  • An audit trail of every valuation, variation and contract setting change
  • Restore an earlier version
  • Download a copy of every project's data

Start

Start wherever your job is

Not priced yet

Start with the estimate, or import the spreadsheet you have.

Go to the step

Running, with a valuation due

Set it up, enter what has been certified so far as one valuation, and issue the next certificate from it.

Go to the step

Monitoring a facility

Start a Monitoring surveyor project and upload the facility PDF on Facility terms.

Go to the step

FAQs

A live job with a valuation due in the next two weeks. Not the biggest and not the most awkward. You want to reach an issued certificate on the first afternoon, because that is the point where you can judge whether QScope saves you time.

Not to start. Enter the sections you are actually valuing this period and add the rest as you go. A partial bill still produces a correct certificate for the work you have priced.

Enter what has been certified so far as one valuation at its value to date, and issue the next certificate from it. QScope does not need the history of every past valuation to produce the next one.

Download a full copy of your account as one file and walk away. Project data stays available to export for at least 60 days after a cancellation, unless you delete the account yourself. Your data is not held hostage to the subscription.

No. Each stage works on its own. When you use more than one, they share the same record, so nothing is retyped.

One record from the first estimate to the final account

Set the job up once, and every stage after it works from the same figures.

Start free for 30 days See the interactive demo

30 days free, no card.

Rather ask first? Write to help@qscope.co.uk and you will get a reply within one working day, Monday to Friday.