# Construction Budget Tracking and Cost Control

> Track budget, committed and certified cost against the BOQ, with task-wise and BOQ-wise cash outflow reports and forecasts in SuperWise.

Canonical: https://superwise.site/features/estimation-vs-earned-value/
Last updated: 2026-11-03

Construction cost control sets what a project budgeted against what it has committed and what it has certified. SuperWise reads those three figures from the BOQ, the orders and the bills.

- Committed from orders, certified from bills
- Cash outflow reports by task and by BOQ item

## The budget was fine until the bills arrived.

SuperWise puts committed and certified cost beside the budget on every BOQ item, so an overrun shows at the order, not when the bill lands.

- **Budget from the BOQ.** A contracted quantity and rate for each BOQ item, edited in the BOQ playground. Rate analysis builds a rate up from materials, labour and machinery.
- **Committed cost.** POs and work orders are priced against the BOQ and capped by quantity. A PO records when a user acknowledged a budget overrun.
- **Certified cost.** RA bills claim approved measurements at the work order rate. Supplier bills reconcile accepted delivery challans at the PO rate.
- **Outflow reports and forecasts.** Task-wise and BOQ-wise cash outflow, MIS forecasts with S-curves, and package-wise cost summaries.

## How it works

Cost moves from the estimate to the order to the bill, and each step is on the BOQ item.

1. **Estimate the BOQ.** The BOQ lists each work item with its estimated quantity and rate, grouped by category, with the rate built up from resources where you use rate analysis. That estimate is the budget every later figure is measured against.
2. **Update it as the scope changes.** A bulk sheet updates quantities and rates in one go, and BOQ revisions keep the earlier versions. The budget stays a record of what was estimated and when it changed, not a spreadsheet someone overwrote.
3. **Commit and certify against it.** Purchase orders and work orders commit cost against a BOQ item, and RA bills and supplier bills certify it. Quantity caps on PO lines and work orders stop spend from running past the order.
4. **Read it on the project.** Each BOQ item shows its quantity completed and percent completed beside its estimate, and the dashboard shows committed cost against budget. Cash outflow reports forecast the payments by task and by BOQ item.

## From measurement to certified cost

Certified cost starts at the site measurement. An approved sheet updates the BOQ progress, the RA bill claims it against the work order, and approval and payment close the chain.

1. **Measurement sheet.** Number × length × breadth × height, less deductions, against a BOQ item
2. **Measurement approval.** Approval updates the BOQ progress
3. **RA bill.** Period, cumulative quantity up to the work order, retention, mobilisation recovery
4. **Approval workflow.** Approvers by role sign the bill off in steps
5. **Payment.** Payments released against the bill, bill printed

## The BOQ and rate analysis

The [bill of quantities](https://superwise.site/glossary/bill-of-quantities/) is the budget. Each BOQ item holds a contracted quantity and a rate, and its amount is quantity times rate. Items sit in a hierarchy of chapter, section and item, and each has a code such as C-001 or S-234. That code does the work a [cost code](https://superwise.site/glossary/cost-code/) does elsewhere, because work order lines, measurement sheets and RA bill lines all point back to the BOQ item.

[Estimation](https://superwise.site/glossary/estimation/) happens in the BOQ playground. You pick a schedule template scope, enter the contracted quantity for each work item (1,250 cum of RCC M25 slab on each of ten floors is 12,500 cum), then type the rate or build it up in rate analysis. Edits stay in a working copy until you commit them, and only the committed BOQ is available to work orders, RFP scope and RA billing.

Rate analysis breaks a rate into the materials, labour and machinery behind it, each with a quantity, a rate and a wastage percentage. The bill of materials multiplies those resources by the BOQ quantity, which is the basis of the material procurement schedule in the MIS report. BOQ items also link to schedule tasks and to schedule nodes, so the same work item can carry a different share of its quantity in each tower.

## Committed against certified cost

Commitment starts when an order is priced. A work order line points at a BOQ item and takes its contracted rate. A PO line has a maximum quantity that deliveries cannot pass, with a permissible variation set on the resource, and it can link to a BOQ item. The PO also carries a flag that records when a user acknowledged a budget overrun, so the overrun is on the record. Going past either cap means amending the order. An amendment raises the revision, keeps a snapshot of the earlier version and records the reason, so a [cost overrun](https://superwise.site/glossary/cost-overrun/) shows as a revision that keeps the earlier figure.

Certification has two routes. Contractor work is certified through [RA bills](https://superwise.site/features/ra-bill-certification/) built from approved sheets in the [digital measurement book](https://superwise.site/features/digital-measurement-book/) at the work order rate, with retention and mobilisation recovery deducted and the cumulative quantity capped at the work order quantity. Supplier bills, called bill inward, reconcile accepted delivery challans only, at the rate on the PO line, so nobody types a rate at billing.

When a PO is amended mid-period, the bill uses the rate of the revision in force, so deliveries before and after the change are costed at their own rates in the same bill. A debit or credit note from the vendor ledger can be adjusted in the bill and lowers the net payable. A bill also records when it was passed to Tally and by whom.

## Cash outflow reports and forecasts

The BOQ-wise cash outflow report splits each BOQ item's spending into what has been committed through PO and work order values and what has been certified through RA bills and bill inwards. A level setting gives category totals or line items, and you can show quantities or amounts. The task-wise report does the same for each WBS task over a period you pick, with planned spending taken from the budget and actual spending from bills and challans.

Forecasts sit in the MIS report. Its A2 format has a task forecast, the same forecast at budgeted rate, a percentage-completion forecast drawn as an S-curve, a BOQ summary of contracted, measured, billed and remaining quantities, and a BOQ forecast drawn as a cash S-curve against BOQ value, also at budgeted rate. You choose a weekly or monthly interval and the date the forecast starts. The A4 format adds a cost-wise task summary of planned against actual cost.

The package-wise cost summary lists PO value, WO value, spending to date and budget use for each construction package. The template-wise summary groups every instance of a template, such as all typical floor slabs, and the portfolio summary shows cost to date against budget for every active project. Reports download as PDF or Excel.

## Unplanned purchases and site expenses

The MIS report lists unplanned material purchases, which are delivery challans with no matching PO or no BOQ link, and a material variation report that sets procured quantities against planned BOQ quantities to show over and under consumption.

Petty cash goes through expense vouchers. Each voucher takes a reason from a master list, such as travel, printing or site lunch, with an amount, a date, a receipt image and an approval status that records the approver.

## What the module produces

- **Cash outflow reports.** Task-wise and BOQ-wise reports for a period and a rollup level, as PDF or Excel.
- **MIS forecasts and S-curves.** Task and BOQ forecasts, including at budgeted rate, on a weekly or monthly interval.
- **Package-wise cost summary.** PO value, WO value, spending to date and budget use for each construction package.
- **BOQ and bill of materials.** The approved BOQ and the task-level BOQ download as Excel, and the bill of materials totals each resource from BOQ quantity and rate analysis.

## Frequently asked questions

### Does SuperWise calculate earned value?

Not as a full earned value model. SuperWise documents the inputs. The task-wise cash outflow report sets planned spending against actual spending for each task, and the schedule-wise task summary in the MIS report shows SPI. It does not document a CPI or an earned value report. Cost control here compares budget with committed, certified and forecast cost.

### What is the difference between budget, committed and certified cost?

Budget is the BOQ, a contracted quantity and rate for each item. Committed cost is what POs and work orders have promised to pay. Certified cost is what RA bills and supplier bills have approved. The BOQ-wise cash outflow report sets committed against certified for each BOQ item, and the package-wise cost summary adds spending to date and budget use.

### Can I forecast cash outflow?

Yes. The MIS report in A2 format forecasts tasks and the BOQ, including at budgeted rate, with S-curves for percentage completion and for cash against BOQ value. You choose a weekly or monthly interval and the date the forecast starts. These are outflow and progress forecasts. SuperWise does not document a cash inflow forecast.

### What stops spend from going past the order?

Quantity caps. A delivery cannot pass the PO line's maximum quantity beyond the permissible variation, and an RA bill's cumulative quantity cannot pass the work order quantity. To go further you amend the order, which raises the revision and records a reason. A PO also carries a flag that records when a user acknowledged a budget overrun.

### How are rates built up in the BOQ?

You can type a rate for a BOQ item or build it in rate analysis. Rate analysis lists the materials, labour and machinery behind the rate, each with a quantity, a rate and a wastage percentage, and together they make up the BOQ rate. The bill of materials then multiplies each resource by the BOQ quantity to give the total requirement.

### Does SuperWise connect to my accounts or ERP software?

The one documented hand-off is on supplier bills, which record when and by whom a bill was passed to Tally. Zapier can send other events, such as an approved PO, to other apps. SuperWise tracks cost at project level through the BOQ, orders, bills and payments. No SAP or QuickBooks sync is documented.

## Related
- [Digital measurement book](https://superwise.site/features/digital-measurement-book/)
- [RA bill certification](https://superwise.site/features/ra-bill-certification/)
- [Construction scheduling software](https://superwise.site/features/construction-scheduling/)
- [Estimation](https://superwise.site/glossary/estimation/)
- [Bill of Quantities (BOQ)](https://superwise.site/glossary/bill-of-quantities/)
- [Overrun (Cost & Time)](https://superwise.site/glossary/cost-overrun/)
- [Cost Code](https://superwise.site/glossary/cost-code/)