Running variations

Pricing a variation: the build-up, valuation bases and your schedule of rates

3 min read · Checked against the product 3 October 2026

Record how a variation’s value is reached so it can be defended: choose the valuation basis, price from the tender’s schedule of rates, attach your spreadsheet and keep signed daywork records.

A price with no build-up is an opening offer. A price that shows its basis, rates and quantities is a valuation the other side has to engage with. The Valuation panel on each variation records how the value was reached. Saving a build-up or daywork lines is open to the commercial roles.

Choose the valuation basis

Pick the basis the contract allows for this change from the six offered: Contract / BQ rates (SBC 5.6.1.1), Pro-rata to contract rates (SBC 5.6.1.2), Fair rates & prices (SBC 5.6.1.3), Dayworks (SBC 5.7), Agreed lump sum, or Accepted quotation (NEC compensation event or SBC Schedule 2).

Build the price

1. Open the variation, find the Valuation panel and select the basis.
2. If you priced it in a spreadsheet, which is how most QSs work, attach the spreadsheet to the variation as a document so it travels with the evidence.
3. For a quick price, or where there is no spreadsheet, add lines of item, quantity, unit and rate. Each line totals itself.
4. Choose “Save build-up”. With “Set as the agreed value” ticked, which is the default, saving also copies the total into the variation’s agreed value. Untick it while the figure is your asking price; the price you submit is entered when you move the variation to Priced.

Price from your schedule of rates

If the job was tendered on a priced bill or schedule of rates, import it once and price each variation from it at contract rates. The schedule is on every commercial project, on every plan except Builder.

1. On the project page, open the Schedule of rates panel and choose Import.
2. Copy the bill from your spreadsheet, header row included, and paste it, or choose a CSV file. An .xlsx workbook cannot be read directly, so paste the cells or save the sheet as CSV first. An export from an estimating tool works the same way.
3. Check how the columns were matched: item ref, section, description, unit, quantity, rate and amount. Rows with problems are highlighted and left out, and totals in the bill are skipped.
4. Choose “Import schedule”. A schedule holds up to 5,000 items, and each import replaces the whole schedule.
5. On a variation, choose “Add from schedule of rates”, search by reference or description and pick an item. Its description, unit and rate go onto a new line and you enter the quantity. If no basis was set it becomes Contract / BQ rates. The picker stays open, because a variation is usually priced from several items.

Rates the tender suggests

On the VariationFlow plans the schedule also makes suggestions. A build-up line with a description and no rate shows “In the tender:” with the items that read like it, how close each match is, and “Use rate” (or “Use amount” for a lump sum). An empty build-up shows “This variation may already be in the tender” above items that read like the variation, each with “Add line”, which is worth reading before you price work the tender may already cover. A different unit is flagged, and nothing changes until you choose a suggestion.

Dayworks

Where work is valued on dayworks, the Dayworks panel records the allocation sheet line by line: labour, plant or materials, the date worked, description, quantity, unit, rate and who signed it for the contractor. Unsigned lines are flagged, because unsigned daywork carries little weight in a dispute.

What good looks like

• A basis on every priced variation, with the pricing spreadsheet attached where one exists.
• Daywork sheets signed on the day by the contractor’s representative and entered the same week.
• Variations on a bill-priced job priced from the imported schedule, so the rates match the tender.

Common mistakes

• Leaving “Set as the agreed value” ticked on an asking price, so the register shows a figure as agreed that nobody agreed.
• Importing a bill with its subtotals mapped as items. Check the preview before you import.
• Pricing from memory when the tender rates are sitting in the schedule.