Estimating · BOQ · Rate analysis · RA bill

Construction estimation software for Indian projects

CivilOS is a free construction estimation software that runs entirely in your browser — no installation, no licence, nothing to renew. It is built for the people who actually raise the paperwork on an Indian project: the junior engineer preparing a departmental estimate, the quantity surveyor pricing a tender, the contractor's billing engineer raising a running account bill, and the consultant who has to defend every line of it in a meeting.

The design principle throughout is that a number nobody can re-derive is worthless. Every quantity carries the measurement that produced it, every rate carries where it came from, and every revision keeps the figures it was signed off with. That is the difference between an estimate and a spreadsheet.

What you can do

Estimating in CivilOS is not one screen — it is a chain that runs from the drawing to the bill. Each link exports on its own, so you can join the chain wherever your office already works.

Feature	What it does	Export
Bill of Quantities	IS-code item descriptions organised as divided section → sub-head → item, with quantity, unit, rate and amount, and a remark on each row showing the basis of its quantity	.xlsx, PDF, CSV
Quantity takeoff	Measurement entries in the familiar nos × L × B × D form, taken off an uploaded drawing or typed, feeding the BOQ as visible rows	.xlsx
Rate analysis	Builds a rate from labour, material and plant coefficients at your own prices, plus overhead and contractor's profit; change the mason's daily wage and every rate that uses it moves	.xlsx
Rate provenance	Each rate stores source, issuing authority, document reference and date in force, and warns when a schedule is likely superseded	on-screen audit
Revisions & snapshots	Freezes a priced BOQ as it stood; comparing two snapshots decomposes each change into a quantity effect and a rate effect that sum exactly to the total change	.xlsx
Sanctioned estimate pack	General abstract, technical report, abstract of cost by part, flat priced BOQ, item × sub-work consolidation matrix and one measurement sheet per sub-work	.xlsx, PDF
RA (running account) bill	Measured-to-date, previously paid and now payable, with deductions shown as their own lines and each one citing its authority	.xlsx, PDF
Bar Bending Schedule	Member-wise reinforcement schedule to IS 456 / IS 2502 / SP 34 / IS 13920, every row carrying the formula that produced it	styled .xlsx
Client share	A read-only link to the priced set through Team Workspace, so a client can read without being able to edit	share link

How it fits an Indian estimating workflow

An Indian estimate is not a flat price list, and software that treats it as one falls apart at the first sanction meeting. A government estimate is organised by sub-work, not by trade: the building, the sanitary installation, the underground water tank and the compound wall are separately measured, separately abstracted and separately totalled, because they are separately sanctioned and can be separately dropped. CivilOS keeps that structure. Item numbering restarts at 1 inside every part, sub-items are real — a parent row carrying the common preamble with no quantity, its children carrying the variants numbered n.1, n.2 — and percentage add-ons such as contingencies and departmental charges are computed on the total of works, never on each other, and printed as their own labelled lines so an auditor can re-derive them without asking anybody.

Rates follow the same discipline. The BOQ reads from the Cost Estimator, which holds the CPWD DSR 2023 as shipped data, State PWD schedule rates, market rates and rates you built up yourself in the rate analysis. Where a schedule rate needs adjusting for the city cost index or for escalation to the present year, the multiplication chain is printed rather than silently applied. On the billing side the running account bill obeys the rule that matters most: the rate on a bill is the agreement rate, not whatever the schedule says today.

Downstream, the same quantities feed the Bar Bending Schedule to IS 2502 and SP 34, the concrete and mortar quantities use the standard wet-to-dry factors of Indian practice (1.54 for nominal-mix concrete, 1.33 for mortar, 1.30 for plaster), and design-mix grades above M25 are handled separately because IS 456 does not permit nominal mixes there.

How to prepare an estimate in CivilOS

Open the app and start a project. It loads in the browser; nothing installs. Add it to your home screen if you want it to behave like an app offline.
Get your quantities in. Upload a drawing for takeoff, measure it in the IndoCAD viewer, or type measurement entries directly as nos × length × breadth × depth.
Choose your rate basis. In the Cost Estimator pick DSR 2023, a State PWD schedule or market rates, and record the authority and the date in force against each rate you rely on.
Build up any rate that is not in a schedule. Open rate analysis, set your local material prices and daily wages, adjust the coefficients, and add overhead and profit.
Assemble the BOQ. Group items into divided sections and sub-heads. Check the remark on each row — it tells you which measurement produced that quantity.
Freeze a revision. Take a snapshot before the drawings change. When they do, compare snapshots to get a variation statement that separates quantity change from rate change.
Produce the document. Export the estimate pack for sanction, or raise the running account bill for a payment certificate. Export .xlsx for the office file and PDF for the signed copy.
Have it checked and signed. Everything CivilOS produces is a draft for a qualified engineer to verify — the software's job is to make that check fast, not to replace it.

What CivilOS does not do

No structural analysis or design. There is no solver. CivilOS quantifies, details and schedules what an engineer has designed; it will never tell you a beam size or a reinforcement layout.
No MEP calculation. You can draft services on a plan using MEP symbols and discipline layers, but there is no load, duct, pipe or cable sizing engine anywhere in the product.
No 4D or 5D simulation. The scheduler produces a CPM programme and the BOQ produces money, but the two are not fused into an animated cost-loaded model.
Not an accounting or ERP system. There is no ledger, no payroll, no purchase-order or inventory module, and no integration with a tender portal.
Rates are your responsibility. The shipped State SOR and market rates are samples to be replaced with your current schedule, and the cost indices are CPWD-style sample values. CivilOS does not fetch rates from any government site automatically.
AI features are limited. Reading a drawing or a rate page uses AI under fair-use limits; the estimating arithmetic itself is deterministic code with no AI in it, which is exactly how it should be.

Where a browser estimating tool fits

Desktop estimating packages in this category are typically bought for deep enterprise workflows: multi-user rate libraries administered centrally, integration with an ERP or accounting back end, resource-loaded programmes, subcontract package management and audit trails maintained across hundreds of live contracts. Firms running that volume need that machinery, and CivilOS does not attempt it.

A free browser tool fits a different and very common situation: one engineer, one project, a deadline, and a laptop that may not be the one they usually use. It is useful when you need a properly structured priced BOQ today rather than a licence request next month, when a site office needs to raise a running bill without a software installation, when a student or a small consultancy needs the government formats to practise on, and when you want the arithmetic visible so a checker can follow it. Many offices use both — the enterprise package for the contract of record, a browser tool for the fast, checkable working document.

Questions people ask

Is the estimation software in CivilOS free?

Yes. The BOQ, rate analysis, revisions, sanctioned estimate and running account bill are free to use and run in your browser with no installation. The AI assistant and drawing-reading features are subject to fair-use limits; the estimating arithmetic itself is ordinary code and has no limit.

Can I take quantities off a drawing instead of typing them?

Yes. The Quantity Survey module takes off quantities from a drawing you upload, and IndoCAD can measure lengths and areas on a sheet. Every quantity still arrives in the BOQ as a measurement row you can see and edit, because a quantity nobody can re-derive cannot be defended in a bill.

Does the BOQ export to Excel?

It exports a .xlsx workbook laid out as divided section, sub-head and item, in which the roll-up cells are live formulas rather than pasted numbers, so a checker can change a quantity and watch the totals move. You can also print the priced schedule as a PDF or copy it as CSV.

Can CivilOS produce a sanctioned estimate and an RA bill?

Yes. The estimate pack builds the general abstract, technical report, abstract of cost by part, the flat priced BOQ, an item-by-sub-work consolidation matrix and one measurement sheet per sub-work. The running account bill prints measured-to-date, previously paid and now payable, with each deduction citing its authority.

How does it handle revisions and variations?

A revision is a frozen snapshot: it stores the quantity, rate and amount as they stood on the day it was taken and is never recomputed against a later rate table. Comparing two snapshots splits every changed line into a quantity effect priced at the old rate and a rate effect valued on the new quantity, and the two add up exactly to the change.

quantity effect = (q₁ − q₀) × r₀ · rate effect = (r₁ − r₀) × q₁ → sum = q₁r₁ − q₀r₀

Does CivilOS analyse or design structures?

No. There is no structural analysis or design engine of any kind. CivilOS estimates, details, schedules and quantifies what an engineer has already designed. Member sizes, reinforcement and load paths must come from a qualified structural engineer, and every output is a draft for that engineer to check and sign.

Where do the rates come from?

You choose. The Cost Estimator ships the CPWD DSR 2023 as data, holds State PWD schedule and local market rates, and lets you record a vendor quotation or a rate you built up yourself. Each rate carries its source, authority, document reference and date in force so an estimate never rests on an unattributed number.

Open the free estimation workbench → BOQ, rate analysis, revisions, estimate pack and RA bill

Draft for checking. Every quantity, rate and total CivilOS produces is a working draft. Schedules of rates, departmental percentages and contract conditions vary by authority and financial year — a qualified engineer must verify the estimate against the governing schedule and contract before it is submitted, sanctioned or paid against.