Recorded material prices by market, each with a date and a source.
Costing and commercial control. 5 questions answered below, each with the arithmetic behind it and the limits of what the tool decides. Open the Material Prices tool.
Every estimate eventually rests on a price, and this page is where those prices live. Each material in the book carries a figure, a unit, the market it applies to and the date it was recorded, so a rate in a quote can be traced to a source rather than remembered. The date is the most important field on the page. Construction material prices move, and a figure without a date is a figure that cannot be judged. Where a market has no verified price for a material, the page shows the gap and the calculators ask rather than substituting a number, which is why an estimate in a market without a price book looks complete in its quantities and honest in its prices.
A bag of cement at a recorded figure in a given month, a cubic metre of sand at another, and a block at another, each with its date. An estimate that uses three hundred bags can show where the bag price came from and when. Change the market and the prices change with it, and where the new market has no recorded block price, the calculator asks for one rather than carrying the previous country's figure into a quote.
Materials with their price, the unit it is quoted in, the market it applies to and the date it was recorded. That is a record rather than a quote, and the difference is the date: a price with a date can be judged for age, and a price without one cannot be judged at all. The page is deliberately boring about this, because an estimate depends on it.
No. They are recorded prices, which means they are what was known when they were entered, in the market they belong to. A price can change the day after it is recorded, and a supplier can quote something different for a particular order. The page gives a starting figure with a date so you can decide whether to use it or to get a quote for the job.
Because material prices move, sometimes sharply, and a figure with no date cannot be assessed. A bag of cement recorded last month may still be right and may be ten percent out, and the only way to know is to see when it was recorded. The age of a price is a better guide to its reliability than the price itself.
Every entry keeps its source and its date, and an estimate that used it can be traced back to it. That matters when a client asks why a reissued quote differs, or when a job is compared against a similar one from six months earlier. The answer is a figure, a market and a date, rather than a recollection.
The calculators read from the book for the market selected, and where no price exists for a material in that market, the calculator asks for a figure instead of substituting one. That keeps a price in a quote traceable to either the book or to you, which is the only basis on which a total can be defended line by line.