Manage provisional sums and allowances

Go through the scope and list every element the design cannot yet price firmly: undesigned finishes, a specialist package still out to market, statutory connections, a prime cost item.

Why: Naming the soft spots up front is what stops them being priced twice or missed entirely. It also tells the client exactly which parts of the number are still to be firmed up.

Mark each one as a defined or undefined provisional sum, a prime cost sum or an allowance, then record the basis behind the figure and who owns firming it up.

Why: A defined sum carries programme and preliminaries; an undefined one does not. Getting the type right now decides whether you can claim time and cost when it is finally instructed.

Bring the sums into the bill in their own section, clearly separate from measured work, so the tender total shows firm price and provisional money apart.

Why: Kept separate, the sums can be expended and adjusted through the job without disturbing the measured rates. Buried in the rates they become impossible to track or hand back.

Validate that nothing sits in both a rate and a provisional sum, that every sum has an owner, and that the totals reconcile before the bill goes out.

Why: Double counting a package is an easy way to price yourself out of a job; missing it is an easy way to lose money. A quick validation pass closes both traps at once.