Cost options & provisional sums

Not every figure on a tender is a firm price. Estimator+ gives you two ways to carry something less certain, and the difference between them is whether it counts toward the number you're actually submitting.

Cost options

A cost option is priced outside the tender total. Right-click a row and choose Add cost option to create one. Use it for alternates and add-ons the client hasn't committed to yet — an upgrade, a variation you're pricing speculatively, anything you want costed and visible without it inflating the price you're actually submitting.

Provisional sums

A provisional sum is the opposite: it's included in the tender total. Right-click and choose Add provisional sum, and Estimator+ creates a trade heading with one line already under it:

• The heading is the short, client-facing title — what shows on the submission.
• The line's name is the long allowance statement — the detail behind the figure.
• The rate is your guess at the allowance amount.

You can add more lines under a provisional sum trade if the allowance needs breaking into parts — that's expected, not a workaround.

A note on the old mechanism

You may see a tab or a switch labelled Provisional Sums (superseded) on an older tender — that's a previous way of recording provisional sums through the Notes panel, kept visible only because that project still carries rows created under it. It only shows up where those legacy rows exist; it isn't something to create new provisional sums with. Use Add provisional sum on the ledger for anything new.

Related: Ledger, Enter quotes.