BOQ stands for Bill of Quantities, a term frequently used in the construction industry. It is a document used

in tendering in which materials, parts, and labor are itemized.

In CUBE, the BOQ functionality enables users to organize items in a hierarchical and presentable format, which can then be further exported

Creating a BOQ

Every time a new estimate is created, you’ll be able to see a BOQ tab within it the first time you open an estimate. It’s like the command center for the Estimate where everything is consolidated in one single view.

A BOQ is comprised of a set of items in CUBE. To create it, the primary action you’d be doing is adding and organizing items in a logical fashion.

<aside> 🗒️ Before reading further, we recommend you have a good understanding of what items are and how they can be created.

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• In the BOQ tab, you can add individual Items to the BOQ whose quantity is required to calculate the final amount. These added Items are then available to be associated with Takeoffs for fetching quantities.

• Every Item can be added by either providing its Code as mentioned in the ‘Cost Database’ or directly entering the item description (which is considered a Market Rate Item) also its Unit (which is the purchase unit), and Rate manually to the BOQ. Please refer to this article for more information on Market Rate items.

• Items can be structured (nested items) in such a way that they can form a parent-child relationship where the parent is the main Item and the child items are the various types/sub-types of the main Item.

Refer to this article for a step-by-step example of adding a nested item to the BOQ.

• Once the quantity is recorded in the BOQ either by measuring through Takeoff or by manually adding, the cumulative amount of all child items is equal to the amount of Parent Item. The total of all the parent items’ amounts is the total amount of the BOQ.<image where we have highlighted the sub-totals and totals>

• In addition to BOQ items, overhead charges can be added to BOQ in the form of additional costs at the bottom along with the total which is then calculated (added) to show the Grand Total of the BOQ or the Estimate.

• BOQ can be exported in two formats namely PDF (.pdf) and Excel (.xlsx) for external sharing purposes. You can read this article to know more about exporting.