Work Breakdown Structures

A Work Breakdown Structure is a named cost center tree. Most builders need one. Some need two or three, and this is how you keep them apart.

When one is not enough

You do	You might want
New builds and renovations	A structure for each — renovations carry demolition and make-good that a new build has no line for
Residential and commercial	Separate structures; commercial usually needs more depth
Work for a builder who mandates their codes	Their structure alongside your own
Volume and custom homes	A tight volume structure, a fuller custom one

If none of those apply, one structure is the right answer and multiple structures will only cost you consistency.

Making a structure available to a project

On the project, the Work Breakdown Structures tab controls which structures its costings can use, and which one new costings get by default.

Default WBS for new Costings is the setting worth getting right. Set it on the project — or on the template you copy projects from — and every new costing starts with the correct structure already in place, rather than empty.

Tip

If your team keeps building costings on the wrong structure, the fix is nearly always this default rather than more training.

Choosing the structure for a costing

A costing picks its structure when it is created. Changing it afterwards is possible but disruptive — the items are coded to centers in the old structure, so they have to be re-pointed.

Get it right at creation. If you realise a costing is on the wrong structure and it is still early, it is usually quicker to create a new costing on the right one and duplicate the work across.

Codes should mean the same thing everywhere

If you run more than one structure, keep a code meaning the same thing in each. 300 should be concrete in your new-build structure and in your renovation structure.

Where they must differ, make the difference obvious — a renovation structure might add 250 Demolition and 260 Make good, which simply do not exist in the new-build tree. Adding codes is fine; reusing the same code for different trades is what breaks cross-job reporting.

Filtering

Filter WBS… and Filter Structure… narrow a long tree while you are working in it. Look Up finds a center by code or name when you know what you want but not where it sits.

Where a WBS is used

• The Bill of Quantities groups items by it, and can show Only Selected WBS
• Purchase orders are grouped by it
• Expenses are coded to it
• Cost reports summarise by it
• Hide Empty Nodes in the BOQ suppresses centers with nothing in them, which makes a full standard structure usable on a small job