Field notes
The rules you have to work to
Plain explanations of the UK regulations, deadlines and pricing decisions that decide whether a construction business makes money. Written for contractors, with the statute cited, and useful whether or not you ever buy anything from us.
38 articles
Filter and search
Showing 3 of 38 · Estimating
What are preliminaries, and how do you price them?
The cost of running a site rather than building anything, and the part of a tender most often guessed at, then paid for out of the margin.
7 September 20265 min PricingMarkup and margin: the mistake that costs builders money
Adding 20% to your cost gives you a 16.7% margin, not 20%. On a £200,000 turnover that gap is around £6,600 a year, every year.
7 September 20264 min EstimatingProvisional sums and PC sums: what each one commits you to
A defined provisional sum is in your programme. An undefined one is not, and that distinction decides who owns the delay.
7 September 20264 minBuilt for the way UK contractors actually work
Estimating, quoting, job management, timesheets, invoicing, CIS and site safety, with an offline field mode that installs to a phone and keeps working with no signal.