DocumentMaterials & labour schedule
CurrencyNGN (₦)
Worked exampleThree-bedroom bungalow
Figures dated25 August 2026

Blocks, cement, rods and labour days — straight from your BOQ

A bill is priced in cubic metres and square metres. The site is supplied in blocks, bags, tonnes and man-days. BillMate turns one into the other: every rate built from resource prices is multiplied out over the bill, so you get the order list, the labour you need and the plant time, each with its cost.

Make a schedule from your bill First, build the rates
Written byThe BillMate product teamProduct and documentation
Last reviewed
Correctionssupport@billmate.site

The question after "how much?" is "how many bags?"

A client asks what the building will cost. The contractor asks something else: how many blocks to mould or buy, how many bags of cement, how many tonnes of rods, how many days of masons and steel fixers. Those are the numbers that go to the block industry, the cement dealer and the gang leader, and they are already sitting inside a properly built rate. A schedule just adds them up across the bill.

Done by hand it is a long afternoon in Excel, and the afternoon is repeated every time a quantity changes. In BillMate it is one screen, and it updates when the bill does.

Worked example

Frame and walls of a three-bedroom bungalow.

Three measured items with built-up rates, and two items without, which the schedule names rather than skips.

Materials & labour schedule — three-bedroom bungalow, frame and walls
Materials and labour schedule: each resource the bill needs, with quantity, hours, man-days and cost, from the items' rate build-ups.
Resource Quantity Unit Hours Man-days Cost
Material 9-inch sandcrete block 4,410 nr ₦3,748,500.00
Material High-yield bars 2.52 t ₦3,150,000.00
Material Cement, 42.5N 224.7 bag ₦2,202,060.00
Material Granite 19 mm 17.1 m³ ₦820,800.00
Material Sharp sand 21.24 m³ ₦467,280.00
Material Binding wire 28.8 kg ₦72,000.00
Material Water, curing and admixture allowance 18 item ₦27,000.00
Materials subtotal ₦10,487,640.00
Labour Mason gang 364.8 hr 364.8 45.6 ₦1,641,600.00
Labour Labourer 460.8 hr 460.8 57.6 ₦1,013,760.00
Labour Steel fixer 67.2 hr 67.2 8.4 ₦268,800.00
Labour subtotal 892.8 111.6 ₦2,924,160.00
Plant Concrete mixer, 0.4 m³ 9.9 hr 9.9 1.24 ₦64,350.00
Plant Poker vibrator 6.3 hr 6.3 0.79 ₦18,900.00
Plant subtotal 16.2 2.03 ₦83,250.00
Total of resources₦13,495,050.00
From 3 bill items: Reinforced concrete grade 25 in ground beams, 18 m³ · 225 mm sandcrete blockwork, 420 m² · High-yield reinforcement, 2.4 t. Man-days on an 8-hour working day.
Not in this schedule: 2 items. Formwork to sides of ground beams (rate typed in) · Roof covering (no rate yet). Listed, not dropped: a schedule that leaves them out quietly understates what the job needs.

Read this before using any figure above. The constituent costs are an illustration of the method as at 25 August 2026, not a market survey or a quotation. Nigerian prices move too fast for a website to be current: re-price every resource against your own suppliers. Our position on published figures.

How each number is arrived at

  1. Blocks — 4,410The blockwork rate takes 10.5 nine-inch blocks per square metre: ten in the wall and 5% for breakage and cutting. Multiplied by 420 m² of walling, that is the order.
  2. Cement — 224.7 bagsCement appears in two rates, the concrete (7.35 bags per m³) and the mortar for the blockwork (0.22 bags per m²). The schedule adds both into one line, because the dealer delivers one product.
  3. Rods — 2.52 tonnesThe reinforcement rate carries 1.05 tonnes of bar per tonne fixed, the extra 5% being cutting waste and laps. The schedule gives tonnage; it is not a bar bending schedule, and does not split the order by diameter or length.
  4. Masons — 364.8 hours, 45.6 man-daysHours come from the outputs in the rates: 1.6 gang-hours per m³ of concrete and 0.8 per m² of blockwork. Man-days are hours divided by the working day, which is 8 hours unless you set it otherwise — a site that works 9 hours changes one box and every figure follows.
  5. Steel fixers — 8.4 man-days28 hours per tonne fixed, from the reinforcement rate. Like every labour line it carries its cost, so the labour in the schedule adds back to the labour in the bill.
  6. Plant — hours and plant-daysThe mixer and poker vibrator are charged by the hours each cubic metre uses, so the schedule shows running time, not the days the machine sat on site. Hire is still a programme decision.
Where the numbers come from

No build-up, no schedule line

The schedule is only as good as the rates under it. A rate built from resource prices — so much cement, so many hours of a mason per unit — can be multiplied out. A rate typed straight in, or suggested by the AI, has nothing inside it to count.

  • Items without a resource build-up are listed under the schedule, with the reason
  • The share of the priced work they represent is shown, so you know how much is missing
  • Lump sums typed into a build-up are flagged, because they are not broken into resources
  • Build the missing rates from resource prices and they join the schedule

How to build a Nigerian rate line by line

225 mm sandcrete hollow blockwork in cement mortar 1:6 — unit rate per m²
Unit rate build-up for 225 mm sandcrete hollow blockwork in cement mortar 1:6: constituent, quantity, unit, unit cost and amount, with percentage additions.
Constituent Quantity Unit Cost Amount
Material 9-inch sandcrete block — 10 nr/m² including 5% waste 10.50 nr ₦850 ₦8,925
Material Cement, 42.5N — mortar, including 10% waste 0.22 bag ₦9,800 ₦2,156
Material Sharp sand — mortar, including 10% waste 0.03 m³ ₦22,000 ₦660
Labour Mason gang — lay and point 0.80 hr ₦4,500 ₦3,600
Labour Labourer — mix mortar and serve blocks 0.80 hr ₦2,200 ₦1,760
Net cost₦17,101
Overheads and establishment charges, 10%₦1,710.10
Profit and risk, 15% on net cost plus overheads₦2,821.67
Unit rate per m²₦21,632.77

The blockwork rate behind the schedule above. Illustrative costs — re-price them against your own suppliers.

What the schedule is not

It prints with your letterhead, and exports to an Excel workbook with materials, labour, plant and the items not included on separate sheets. In the workbook the man-days are formulas off the working-day cell. The schedule is part of the free tier.

Build two rates and see the order list appear.

The materials & labour schedule is free, on the 2-project free tier.

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