Project, BOQ and budget

Set up a contract in Hayat Projects — the project with its client, contract value, retention, advance, tax and dates; project status; the WBS (phases and work packages) with dates and dependencies; BOQ items with units, quantities and rates; importing a BOQ from CSV or drafting one with AI; budgets per BOQ item for material, labour, plant, subcontract and overhead; the BOQ lock after the first certificate; milestones and the Gantt chart.

A project is set up top-down: project → WBS (phases / work packages) → BOQ items with their budgets, then the milestones of the schedule. You need proj.manage for everything on this page.

A small job looks like this:

Add a project

Projects → + Project:

Status, changed from the project page: Planning, Active, On hold, Completed, Closed or Cancelled. Closed and cancelled projects cannot be reopened and take no more site entries; a project with certified bills cannot be cancelled.

WBS and BOQ

On the WBS & BOQ tab:

• + Node adds a WBS node — a phase or work package — with its code, name, parent, sort order, start and end dates, an optional % complete override and the nodes it depends on. A node with children or BOQ items cannot be deleted.
• + Item adds a BOQ item under a node: code, description, unit (m³, m², rft, nos, kg …), quantity and rate; the amount is worked out. Edit a row in place with ✎.

Deleting an item that already has measurements or costs only deactivates it.

Import a BOQ from CSV

Import CSV, then paste the sheet or choose the file, check the preview and click Import. Columns are found by their header names — comma or tab separated, so you can paste straight from Excel:

code,description,unit,quantity,rate,wbs,material,labour 1.01,Excavation in foundations,m3,1200,850,Substructure,0,600000 1.02,PCC 1:4:8,m3,180,14500,Substructure,1900000,350000

Codes that already exist are updated; the rest are added. Rows with problems are listed with the reason.

Draft a BOQ with AI

✨ Draft from scope (if Hayat AI is on): paste the scope of work (at least 20 characters), optionally the units you use (e.g. metric: m3, m2, kg), click Draft and Hayat AI drafts BOQ lines with WBS, units, quantities and rates, plus its assumptions and warnings. Edit or remove lines, then Import … item(s) or Open in CSV import. Nothing is saved before you import.

The BOQ lock

Once the first interim or final IPC is certified, the BOQ is locked: quantities and rates cannot change, and new items cannot be added. A banner says so. From then on changes go through a variation order. Budgets can still be changed.

Budgets

Each BOQ item has a budget in five categories: material, labour, plant, subcontract and overhead — type them in the budget columns of the BOQ grid or in the CSV import.

Every cost that reaches the project — a store issue, a purchase, a timesheet, plant hours, a subcontractor bill, a site expense — carries a category and, if you choose one, a BOQ item. The project Overview then shows, per category, the budget, the actual and the committed cost, with the remaining budget, the estimate at completion and the margin to date and forecast. The Budget vs actual report gives the same per BOQ item, with an overrun flag.

Schedule and milestones

The Schedule tab draws a Gantt chart from the WBS: a bar per node from its start to end date, filled to its % complete (the override, or value done ÷ value of its BOQ items, rolled up the tree), arrows from each node to the nodes that depend on it, milestones as diamonds, late items in red and a line for today. Nodes without dates use the project's.

+ Milestone: name, WBS node, due date, an amount (for payment milestones) and notes. Done marks it finished (proj.manage or proj.site). A milestone past its due date shows Overdue and the project manager is notified.