User:Segobye0498/Pro's and Con's of incorporating Preliminaries over Unit rates in a Bill of Quantities.

Pro's and Con's of including Preliminaries over incorporating expenses in Unit rates in the Bill of Quantities... article content follows.[1]

"Preliminaries are unnecessary in the Bill of Quantities since all the contractors expenses can be incorporated in the unit rates".

Preliminaries or shortened as 'Prelims', are expenses that will be incurred during construction which are directly related to the day to day running of the project and have not been included in the materials, labor or overheads.

They are normally calculated individually for each project as a lump sum and added during the finalizing of the tender. In the other hand, a "Unit rate" is a monetary  rate applied to an element or sub-element per unit of measurement (e.g. cost per m2). It is a price based upon prices of all the individual successive units of the works (factored are; labor costs, overheads, VAT...).

In construction or the world of Quantity Surveying to be precise and concise, Prelims are both necessary and unnecessary to be included in the Bill of Quantities. I concede and concur somewhat to the statement, "Preliminaries are unnecessary in the Bill of Quantities since all contractors expenses can be incorporated in the unit rates".

They are deemed necessary to be included in the BoQ because it is not always possible to include all the costs(prelims) of the project in the unit rate. There are  expenses or costs that cannot be assigned to a section of works or element, i.e. site security. For example, when deriving a rate for plastering its not possible to include protective clothing cost even though it is a requirement for workers to be on full clothing when on site. It is mandatory as per Rule 11 of the Code of Conduct of the Employment Act 2010; Part IV and VII of the Factories Act 1973 that if the employee is exposed t hazardous or unpleasant working conditions, the employer must provide appropriate protective clothing and equipment.

Preliminaries are unnecessary because where sub-contracting is used because generally sub-co prelims are included in the work items. They are likely to allow prelims as a direct percentage add on to the value of their direct works. Preliminaries are included in the unit rates applied to sub-elements.

Preliminaries are necessary to be included in the bill of quantities because its a good practice to include in the Invitation to Tender that the contractor must provide a breakdown to the total amount inserted in their quotation as this will likely ease and aid their assessments.


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