A Bill of Quantities (usually shortened to BoQ) is a structured document that lists every item, material, service, or component a buyer needs for a project, along with the required quantities, specifications, and sometimes the unit of measure for each line.
The buyer sends it to potential suppliers. Each supplier prices the BoQ and returns it as a quotation. The buyer compares the returned quotes line by line, selects a supplier, and places the order.
The document
A BoQ is not a purchase order. It is a request for pricing: a detailed list of what the buyer wants, structured in a way that makes supplier responses directly comparable.
Item descriptions
Quantities
Unit of measure
Item code or reference
Rate and amount columns
The BoQ sent to suppliers has quantity columns filled and rate/amount columns left empty. The supplier fills in their unit rate for each line. The total amount is calculated by multiplying rate by quantity.
The buyer receives back a priced BoQ, not a freeform quotation, which is what makes supplier comparison straightforward. Some BoQs also include provisional sums, contingency items, or specification clauses that apply across multiple lines.
The procurement logic
The buyer fills in the quantities. The supplier fills in the rates. The structure is what makes comparing multiple supplier responses line by line possible at all.
Where it's used
BoQ-based procurement is standard practice in industries where projects are large, specifications are precise, and comparing supplier prices line by line matters.
Industry
Construction and Civil Engineering
Industry
Building Services and MEP
Industry
Industrial Plant and Equipment
Industry
Infrastructure and Utilities
Industry
Technical Wholesalers and Distributors
The formats
BoQs arrive in several formats, and the format significantly affects how easy they are to process.
Format
Excel
.xlsx / .xls
The most common format for BoQs in non-regulated or informal procurement contexts. The buyer builds a spreadsheet with item codes, descriptions, quantities, and unit columns. Suppliers fill in the rate column and return the file.
The challenge
Every buyer's Excel BoQ looks different. Column order varies. Item codes are inconsistent. Some buyers merge cells, add notes in random columns, or send files with multiple sheets where only one contains the BoQ. Processing them automatically requires a system that can interpret variable structure.Format
BoQs sent as PDFs are common when the buyer wants to prevent modification of the base document. The supplier prices a separate rate sheet and returns it, or annotates the PDF directly.
PDFs range from machine-readable (text-based, structured) to effectively image files (scanned, handwritten annotations). A scanned BoQ with 400 line items is a significant manual processing task.
Format
GAEB
.D83 / .D84 / .X83 / .X84 / .P83
GAEB is an XML-based data exchange format developed specifically for construction tendering in German-speaking markets. A GAEB file contains the full BoQ structure in machine-readable form: item codes, descriptions, quantities, and units. GAEB files are designed to be imported directly into estimating software or ERP systems, with no manual retyping required in theory.
In practice
Many suppliers still process GAEB files manually because their systems don't handle the import cleanly. The format is well-specified; the tooling around it is uneven.Format
Other structured formats
IFC, XML, platform exports
Some industries use their own variants: IFC for building information modelling contexts, proprietary formats from specific procurement platforms (MERX, Vergabe24, ausschreibung.de in the German market), or structured XML formats from ERP-to-ERP connections between large buyers and their regular suppliers.
The workflow
When a BoQ arrives at a supplier's sales desk, several things need to happen before a quotation can go back.
The volume problem
A 200-line GAEB file can take two to three hours to process manually. For suppliers receiving multiple BoQs per week, this becomes a structural bottleneck at exactly the point where speed determines whether you win the project.
Automation connection
Once a supplier wins a tender and the buyer issues a purchase order, the BoQ effectively becomes the order specification. The order references the BoQ item codes and quantities; the supplier delivers against them in phases.
The workflow spans two distinct automation challenges. The first is the quoting stage: processing incoming BoQs quickly enough to respond within tender deadlines. The second is the order intake stage: receiving call-off orders or delivery releases that reference the BoQ and matching them against the original specification and the ERP.
Both stages involve documents arriving by email in variable formats (Excel BoQs, GAEB files, PDF tenders, follow-on purchase orders) and requiring matching against internal data: the product catalog, the agreed pricing from the original quotation, and the project record in the ERP.
Stage 1
The quoting stage
Processing incoming BoQs quickly enough to respond within tender deadlines. Reading the BoQ in any format, identifying the relevant products, preparing the pricing response for review.
turian RFQ Intake agentStage 2
The order intake stage
Reading call-off orders and delivery releases that reference the project, matching them against the agreed BoQ pricing, and updating the ERP. The downstream follow-on from a won tender.
turian Sales Order Intake agentSee it in action
If your team receives BoQs by email in Excel, PDF, or GAEB format and prices them manually, a 30-minute workflow review will show you exactly where automation reduces the processing time and what the output looks like before it reaches your ERP.
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