Company, project, costing
Almost every “where has that gone?” question in SmarteBuild is really a question about this hierarchy. It is three levels deep, and once it clicks, the whole system becomes predictable.
The three levels
Section titled “The three levels”Company → Project → Costing
Company
Section titled “Company”Your business. There is one of these, and it holds everything that is true across all your jobs:
- your users and what they are allowed to do
- your suppliers
- your price lists
- your company details and branding
- your subscription plan
Set these up once. Every project you ever create draws on them.
Project
Section titled “Project”One job. 14 Marine Parade, Woolworths Fitout Stage 2, Lot 118 Aspen Estate.
A project holds the things that are true about the job regardless of how you price it: the client, the site, the contract stages, the project team and their permissions, and the documents.
Costing
Section titled “Costing”One priced version of that job.
This is the level most people are surprised by, because most estimating tools stop at the job. A costing holds the actual estimate — the cost centers, the Bill of Quantities, the take-off, the markups.
Why a project can have several costings
Section titled “Why a project can have several costings”Because you routinely price the same job more than once, and you need to keep the versions apart.
| Situation | How costings help |
|---|---|
| Client asks for a cheaper option | Duplicate the costing, swap the finishes, compare the two |
| Tender revision issued | Duplicate, update to the new drawings, keep the original for the record |
| Two build methods | One costing framed, one costing steel, priced side by side |
| Budget vs contract | An early budget costing kept alongside the one you signed |
A costing is cheap to duplicate and keeps its own take-off, its own BOQ and its own markups. What it shares with its siblings is the project around it — same client, same documents, same contract stages.
What lives where
Section titled “What lives where”When you cannot find something, work down the levels.
| You are looking for | It lives at |
|---|---|
| A supplier, a price list, a user | Company |
| A drawing, the client, contract stages, permissions | Project |
| The BOQ, cost centers, take-off, markups | Costing |
| An order, a claim, a variation | Costing — they are raised against BOQ items |
| The schedule, defects, the project feed | Project |
How this shows up on screen
Section titled “How this shows up on screen”The module menu down the left changes depending on where you are. Modules that need a costing — Bill of Quantities, Take-Off, Cost Centers — will ask you to pick one before they will open. That is not a fault; it is the hierarchy asking which version of the job you mean.
If a module opens straight to a “Select a Project to open” screen, you are being asked for the project level. If it then asks you to “Select a Costing”, you are being asked for the level below.
- Your first project, end to end — build all three levels for a real job
- Finding your way around — the menus, filters and list views