Used on more than 2,500 construction projects
An estimate is only as good as the scope behind it.
The quantities sit across drawings, BIM and documents. A change to them sits in an addendum. A caveat that moves the price sits in the specification. Pricing the job means holding all of it together, in the same fixed days before the bid is due. Miss one link and the margin leaks.
01
Scope read in parts
Quantities taken off one drawing while a specification or addendum changes them somewhere else.
02
Take-off takes up time
Manual measurement and structuring absorb the days that should go to pricing and strategy.
03
Hard to check
No fast way to review an estimate against the full document set, or against how you priced a similar job before.
Everything the estimate needs, mapped to how you work.
Volve follows the estimating workflow, from the quantities in the drawings to the review before the number goes out. Each step structures the scope, does the reading and shows its source, so the judgement stays with your team.
Quantities extracted and structured by work package and discipline
Take-off checked against the drawings and the model
Each figure linked to its source drawing or specification
Scope organised into work packages for your project type
Requirements and quantities held against each package
Clarifications raised before they turn into pricing risk
Surface scope that is not yet reflected in the price
Flag quantities that differ from the drawings or model
Check valuations against the contract baseline and changes
From tender documents to a traceable BoQ.
Volve measures what the documents support. You decide how each gap closes.
Measured: taken off the drawings or model, traced to the sheet
Counted: items counted from schedules or drawings
Conditional: measurable once an open point is answered
Not quantified: needs your input or an assumption
What estimators ask Volve to do.
Tasks from a normal tender week. Every answer comes with its source.
Quantity check before pricing
In a lump sum bid, the client’s quantity errors become your cost. In a remeasured one, they decide your pricing strategy.
“Check the sheet piling in the bill against the drawings.”
What comes back
The discrepancies, bill item and sheet reference side by side.
Quantities where there’s no bill
Every number is measured or marked as an assumption. Nothing is guessed.
“Build the structure quantities from the drawings and the model, in our package structure, and mark what's assumed.”
What comes back
Quantities per package, each with its source or its assumption.
Qualified quantity estimates
What the documents don’t give you still has to be priced.
“Make qualified estimates for the missing groundworks quantities.”
What comes back
An estimate for each missing quantity, with the basis it rests on, split into what the documents verify and what is assumed.
Scope gaps priced at zero
The scope nobody priced usually sits between two packages.
“What's on the drawings that the bill doesn't cover?”
What comes back
Scope you'd otherwise price as absent, listed with the sheet.
Addendum impact
Three versions of the scope, and none of them matches Thursday's addendum.
“What changed in addendum 3, and which of our items does it hit?”
What comes back
Every item whose quantity or scope moved, old and new figure, with the clause.
Risk checklist
Every commercial term ends up in the price, the clarifications or the qualifications.
“Which terms in this tender need a price?”
What comes back
Yes or no per term: delay damages, securities, indexation, payment, traced to the clause.
GO FURTHER
The patterns, the checklist and the method
Tender pattern · one-page note
Top 7 quantity gaps in construction tenders
Where the bill, the drawings and the model stop matching before the price is set.
Checklist · Excel
How to check a bill of quantities
Ten checks before you trust the numbers, whoever produced them.
Insight · the method
How Volve builds a traceable bill of quantities
Four kinds of quantity, and who closes each gap.
Numbers you can defend
Every quantity shows the drawing or clause it came from.
The same method every time
Your package structure, standard and checks on every tender.
Time back for judgement
The take-off is done. The team’s hours go to the missing quantities, rates, risk and price.
One use case, several roles.
Estimating, commercial and bid teams work from the same structured scope and the same numbers. Findings and sign-offs are shared and traceable, so the estimate the bid team builds is the one the project team inherits.
Estimators
Build the estimate on structured quantities, each one traced to its source drawing or clause.
Quantity surveyors & commercial
Review coverage and valuations against the documents, and see what an addendum has changed.
Bid & procurement
Price the bid and compare supplier offers against the same structured scope.
As a BIM coordinator, I use Volve to quickly identify what I need to extract from the model to support quantity estimation. It helps me connect the tender documents with the BIM work and saves a lot of manual searching.
Sebastian Reinholdtsen
BIM coordinator, AF
Bring one tender pack and we'll run it through Volve with you. You'll see the scope structured into work packages, the quantities pulled from the specifications, drawings and model, or what the estimate has not yet covered. Your team makes the call.
A working session on your own documents
Scope, quantities and what's not yet covered
No preparation needed from your team
Book a 30-Minute Demo
By submitting this form I agree to my details being used in sole connection with the intended enquiry. Please check our privacy policy to see how we protect and manage your submitted data.