What the template contains, plainly
This template is honest about what it is. It holds a configurable cover sheet carrying the client's details and your own, five identical work package tabs with columns for item number, description, unit, quantity, unit rate excluding VAT and selling price excluding VAT, and a cost report that consolidates the totals, the 20 % VAT and the gross figure automatically. The reference to the French BT indices is built in, for contracts subject to price adjustment.
It does not hold the names of the work packages, the item descriptions, the quantities or the prices. That content is the heart of the quantity surveyor's craft and it does not generalise without betraying the reality of each project. What you see in the Quostra case studies is what a surveyor who knows the subject produces. This template is the frame beneath it.
Who the template is for
It is meant for architects, design teams and quantity surveyors who currently produce their estimates on unstructured spreadsheets, or rebuild the formatting on every new project. It suits every kind of programme, housing, offices, retail and public buildings, and every design stage from first sketch through to detailed design.
It is most useful to practices that have no standard frame and lose time on presentation rather than on substance. Opening this file instead of rebuilding one from nothing is already a gain.
What it changes in practice
A standard frame is not rebuilt, it is filled in. On each new project you complete the cover sheet and the information propagates to every tab on its own. You name your work packages, you enter your items, and the cost report updates without a formula to check.
The document is presentable from the first entry. No reformatting before you send it, no cells to realign, no total to recalculate by hand. You open it, you fill it in, you send it.
The limit of any blank template
A template gives the frame. It does not give the content. And in a cost estimate the content decides everything: the right items, the right ratios, accurate quantities, and the interfaces between work packages that nobody thinks to price until the day they turn into a variation.
A badly filled estimate in a handsome template is still a badly filled estimate. What you see in the Quostra case studies is what this template looks like when a senior surveyor fills it in with the rigour of someone who has priced dozens of projects like yours.
Quostra, when the template is no longer enough
If you have a live project and the economics become a subject in their own right, a budget to consolidate, a design trade-off to settle, a client asking for figures that hold up, Quostra puts a senior construction economist at your disposal, available 365 days a year on subscription.
Quostra estimates are produced in your practice's own livery and delivered in under 72 working hours. Three plans, from 495 euros a month. The template you download today, we fill in for you tomorrow.