Scope of works
What each trade delivers, what it touches but does not include, and anything the estimate has not priced, written trade by trade from the approved estimate and the drawings and approved as numbered versions. The client's scope of works document, tender scopes, purchase orders and the quote's inclusions are cut from the approved version. Until there is one, those documents list the estimate lines. Estimators and project managers use it; the assistant drafts and redrafts it.
Four tabs. Trades is the working draft, one row per trade, each item tagged priced (traces to an estimate line), implied (follows from one) or gap (nothing prices it). Gaps is where gaps are decided. Whole job holds the sections that are not one trade's, including the responsibilities matrix. Versions is the history and the approve button.
- The estimate has approved lines; the scope is built from them.
- Drawings are on the job's Documents, so the draft can say what each trade touches.
- Press the generate button on the empty scope to have Base write the draft, or Start scope review in chat to build it trade by trade in conversation. Either way a draft lands for every trade on the estimate.
- Each trade's row opens to its items. Search across trades, filter by status, and group by status.
- Open Gaps. Each is something a trade would expect that no estimate line prices.
- Pick a decision on each: Include or Add to estimate put the item in the trade's scope; Exclude, By others and By the client list it under "Not in this trade"; Not needed drops it. Click a decision again to take it back.
- A trade cannot be confirmed while it has an undecided gap; the trade row says how many are left.
- Open the trade row and type what to change ("include the fire collars", "move the demolition to the builder") in the redraft box, or pick a quick prompt. Open in chat continues in the full chat.
- Base redrafts that trade while the page shows it working. The rest of the scope is untouched.
- Press Confirm on a trade whose items read right. Confirm ready confirms every drafted trade that has no undecided gap in one go.
- When the estimate or the drawings have moved since a trade was drafted, its row says so. Review these trades sends every out-of-date trade back into the review.
- The strip reads "Ready to approve" or "N to clear". Versions lists what still blocks approval.
- Press Approve. The draft is frozen as the next numbered version with a summary of what changed. The scope document, tender scopes and purchase orders cut from now on use it.
- Switch between Draft and Approved to read a version as it was approved. Load into draft copies an earlier version over the working draft; the approved version is untouched until you approve again.
- Items are tagged from the estimate: a scope item that traces to an approved line is priced, one that follows from the lines is implied, and anything else is a gap for a person to decide.
- Check for changes re-reads the estimate and the drawings and marks what has moved, so a trade confirmed against last week's drawings is flagged rather than trusted.
- The quote's inclusions, the scope of works PDF, tender invitations and purchase orders read the approved version. A draft changes none of them.
- Confirming a trade is not approving the scope. Confirm says the trade reads right; approve freezes the whole draft as a version.
- A gap decided as Add to estimate does not add the line for you; it records that the item belongs in the trade's scope. Add the line on the estimate.
- Approving is blocked by an undecided gap or an unconfirmed trade, and Versions says which.
- Reading the approved version is read-only. Switch back to Draft to change anything.