Methods of Preparation of Bills for Construction Works in Nigeria

Difference Between BOQ and BEME

Bill of Quantities (BOQ) and Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation (BEME) are two common bills used in quantity estimation for construction works in Nigeria. According to Engr. Oladipupo S. OLAFUSI, both bills tend to serve the same purpose and are prepared in the same format or manner. The difference between the two bills is that while BOQ is commonly used for building projects in Nigeria, BEME is applicable to large building and other civil engineering projects sponsored by individuals, corporations, and the government.

Methods of Preparation of Bills for Construction Works in Nigeria

In Nigeria, a bill can be prepared as an innovative bill that shows the components of each item of work (materials and labour) separately (see Table 2) or a conventional bill that shows the quantity (materials and labour) combined (see Table 1) and the rate of these units. For instance, if a 20 m³ volume of concrete would be produced for a project, an innovative bill shows the number of bags of cement required for this and its rate, the tonnage of sand required and its rate, and the tonnage of cement required and its rate. These quantities come under the materials column of the bill. Under the labour column, it shows the cost it would take for the labourers to cast the said number of bags and the cost of a mason to compact and dress the concrete. Supervisors’ cost is also separately added. Conventional bills, on the other hand, would be based on the rates of the innovative bill and determine the overall cost (materials and labour) including supervision that it would take to produce a cubic metre (1 m³) of the same concrete strength. Thus, the total cost would be the cost of 1 m³ of concrete multiplied by 20 m³ of concrete. In summary, I can infer that an innovative bill well prepared can be an aid to the preparation of a conventional bill.

Innovative bills are usually easier to understand by the clients, especially where they would be the ones to procure the materials for the work while conventional bills would require the services of a well-trained civil engineer or quantity surveyor to interpret.

I would neither go to determine how the quantity of each item of work is determined (this is usually done through quantity takeoff) nor would I want to show how the various materials to be used for the work are determined. For concrete jobs, mortar for laying blocks, and plastering, there are tables that show the quantities of cement, sand, and granite required for 1 m³ of each mixing ratio of items (bulking inclusive). SEE this post: How to determine the Number of Blocks, Volume of Concrete, and Reinforcement in Construction Works. The article is specifically to show how to convert an innovative bill to a conventional bill.

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Note: As stated earlier, items in an innovative bill have many units of measurement such as bundles, pieces, bags, numbers, lengths, etc. but items in a conventional bill have 3 fundamental units of measurement (m, m², and m³). Some items such as doors, windows, plumbing materials; electrical materials can be measured in units of numbers. Items that are difficult to measure are given a provisional (lump) sum. This provisional sum depends on the experience of similar construction in the past or gotten from those who have done similar projects in the past.

For example, calculate the rate to produce 1 m³ of concrete for a given project. Also include rates for reinforcement and formwork.

The procedure on how to do this can be obtained in PDF format. CLICK HERE (Premium).

You can also download an Excel spreadsheet for quick determination of these rates with a few clicks. CLICK HERE (Premium). See the images below extracted from the Excel spreadsheet.

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The cost of supervisors is usually a percentage of the total project cost. A contingency sum to account for unforeseen errors is also added as a percentage of the total sum (including the cost of supervision) to get the overall sum.

Find attached typical samples of BEME for a building project and road projects respectively (FREE DOWNLOAD).

TYPICAL BEME FOR A BUILDING PROJECT

TYPICAL BEME FOR A ROAD PROJECT

You can contact the author for any kind of bill you wish to prepare.

Thanks for reading!

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