Arquimedes and Job Control

The budget price, sale price and study price of a job item or of an auxiliary price with decomposition depend on their decomposition (quantity and price of its unit items). To make it easier for users when editing the budget, sale and study price in the job items, the program allows for them to be changed without the user having to personally exclude, cancel or adjust the quantities or yields of the unit items. When a value is introduced in a budget, sale or study price of a job item or auxiliary item containing yield and price in its decomposition, the program asks the user to choose amongst three options:

• Fix price
  The price of the job item or modified auxiliary item (budget, sale or study) will not depend on its decomposition. At the same time, all its decomposition lines are deactivated (not eliminated), including those which can be added later on to the concept. The concept will be taken as a concept without decomposition when calculating the indirect expenses (unjustified job items), in reports and when exporting to other formats.
  
  If the Fix price option is selected, a mark will appear next to the price of the job item or auxiliary item that has been modified, and another next to the quantities of the unit items of its decomposition. If the cursor is placed on the price of the job item or auxiliary item, a text tag will appear indicating: "Fixed price (does not depend on its decomposition)". If it is placed on the quantities of the unit items, a text tag will appear indicating "Cancelled quantity".
  
  The fixed price can be unblocked using the Unblock price option, located in the contextual menu that appears on screen when the price is clicked on with the right mouse button. This option reinstates the decomposition of the job item or the auxiliary item, and so the value of the price becomes dependent on this decomposition once more.
• Cancel the quantities of the decomposition
  The quantities and amounts of the unit items making up the price (budget, sale or study) of the job item being modified are deactivated (take a value of zero). The concept will be taken as a concept without decomposition when calculating the indirect expenses (unjustified job items), in reports and when exporting to other formats.
  
  As the amount of the unit items is maintained, if the user introduces quantities in the decomposition, the price of the job item will once again become dependent on the decomposition.
• Adjust the price
  A dialogue box appears allowing the price of the decomposed price to be adjusted automatically by modifying the data of its decomposition. The concept maintains its calculated price condition in the current price structure. In the indicated dialogue, users can select the concept types of the decomposition, which are going to be altered to obtain the price adjustment.

A new tool: Price structure (Processes > Price structure), has been created due to the new display of the three complete price structures in a bill of quantities and its implementation in a price bank, which allows for data to be transferred between these price structures and for them to be modified automatically.

This tool is composed of four options:

• Copy price structure
  Copies the quantities and prices of one of the three price structures (Budget, Sale or Study) to another, with the option to apply a coefficient to the prices.
• Permute price structures
  Allows for quantities to be exchanged between two of the structures (Budget, Sale or Study).
• Cancel price structures
  Deletes the quantities and prices of the chosen complete price structure (Budget, Sale or Study).
• Generate the offer based on the study budget
  Generates the structure of the Sale price, the offer, based on the Study price structure.

Using this tool, users can, for example, obtain an offer based on the Cost study by transferring the study price structure (Direct Expenses + Indirect Expenses) to the sale or budget structure by applying a coefficient or percentage to take into account the total expenses or the expenses which are proportional to the charge. In other words, the general structure expenses of the company plus those of the contract, including the acceptable profit and any unforeseen costs which the user wishes to consider are applied to the DE + IE.

As well as the two new column features implemented in the program (for price banks and for bills of quantities), new columns have also been added in the Visible columns of the Decomposition tree option (double click with the mouse on the header of a database – price bank or bill of quantities) which are used in the newly implemented and improved features.

New column features have been implemented in the Column presentation field within the Visible columns of the Decomposition tree dialogue box of a price bank (double click with the left mouse button on the header of a price bank in the Decomposition tree window) and other existing options have been improved.

Some of these features have been adapted bearing in mind the options that have been selected in the Project type (Show > Configuration > Project type). These options are grouped in two categories: Project type (For Public Administration or For Private Promotion) and Price structure for the Job Execution Contract (New section implemented in the 2013.e version which contains the Budget price structure and Sale price structure options).

The features of the implemented or improved columns are:

• Price structure (new type)
  Displays the three complete price structures:
  • Quantity, Price, Cost and Amount
  • Sale quantity, Sale price and Sale amount
  • Study quantity, Study price and Study amount
• Offer preparation (new type)
  Includes new columns implemented in the 2013.e version. Whether or not these columns appear depends on the options selected in the Project type dialogue box.
• Offer or contract (new type which substitutes the Offer column presentation)
  Some of the columns it includes depend on the options selected in the Project type dialogue.
• Certifications
  Includes new columns implemented in the 2013.e version. Whether or not these columns appear depends on the options selected in the Project type dialogue box.
• Study or objective (new type)
• Execution (new type)
• Estimate (new type)
• Job control

Since previous versions, bills of quantities created in Arquimedes contemplated three complete price structures (budget, sale and study), although only two of them could be visualised; the one we now refer to as the Budget (quantity, price or amount) and either of the other two (Sale or Study). The price calculation method option (Show > Configuration) indicated if the decomposition referred to the sale price or the study price.

As of the 2013.e version, the three complete price structures, Budget (Quantity, Price and Amount), Sale (Sale quantity, Sale prices and Sale amount) and Study (Study quantity, Study price, Study amount) can be viewed at the same time and so, the previously mentioned, Calculation price method option, is no longer of any use and has been removed.

These three complete price structures share the same decomposition structure. Usually, job items and auxiliary prices will only have yield or a quantity in one of the three structures (usually the Budget structure), unless the concept has been imported from a price bank or another bill of quantities that already had one of the other price structures included in it. For a concept to have data in any of the other price structures the desired yield or quantity (sale or study quantity) must be introduced in it together with its corresponding price (sale or study price).

The three price structures allow for the project budget, study or objectives of the contractor and contract offer to be maintained in the same job, regardless of whether it is a public administration or private sector project.

More information on the changes and new options, provided to our program users, to define the three complete price structures can be found below.

The Column presentation field within the Visible columns of the Decomposition tree dialogue box of a price bank (double click with the left mouse button on the header of a price bank in the Decomposition tree window) now has a new option: Company Price bank, which allows users to view the three complete price structures (Quantity, Price, Amount, Sale quantity, Sale price, Sale amount, Study quantity, Study price and Study amount).

Since previous versions, price banks in Arquimedes have had a complete price structure (with quantities, prices and amounts at unit level). This complete price structure is referred to as the Budget, and the two new price structures which are implemented in the 2013.e version are the:

• Sale (Sale quantity, Sale price and Sale amount)
• Study (Study quantity, Study price and Study amount)

This way, a company can have its own price bank with the company’s expenses and the sale price for job units and unit concepts. These prices can be copied to a bill of quantities to become part of a chapter or job item, maintaining the company expenses and sale prices, and this way, obtain an offer for the developer.

Users can use one, two or the three complete price structures in their price banks, depending on their requirements or what is customarily done when elaborating their bills of quantities.