BillMate ships with no rate data at all. Your library is the price basis — imported from what you already keep, captured from every job you price, and maintained with the location, the date and the source attached to each rate.
The complete library — import, apply, capture, uplift, export — is in the free tier. It is not the thing the licence sells you.
Nobody starts from nothing. The rates are in old priced bills and workbooks named after clients. Export one to CSV or Excel, map its columns once, and it becomes a library you can price a whole bill from.
| Description | Unit | Rate | Location | Priced | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excavate to reduce levels, n.e. 2.00 m deep, dispose off site | m³ | $18.50 | Site A — coastal | 2026-06 | Priced tender | Current |
| Reinforced concrete grade 30 in pad and strip foundations | m³ | $141.83 | Site A — coastal | 2026-06 | Own build-up | Current |
| Ditto, same specification | m³ | $167.20 | Site B — remote | 2026-05 | Priced tender | Current |
| High-yield reinforcement, cut, bent and fixed | t | $1,320 | Site A — coastal | 2026-04 | Subcontract quote | Current |
Apply the library across the bill and every item it can match confidently is priced. What it cannot match is left alone and visible, which is the useful part — the unmatched items are exactly the ones that need your attention.
Number-safe matching. A rate for a trench not exceeding 1.50 m deep is never offered against a trench 3.00 m deep. The dimensional numbers in a description have to agree before a match is proposed, because "excavate trench" matching "excavate trench" is not a match — it is a coincidence of wording.
| Item | Description | Unit | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.01 | Excavate to reduce levels, not exceeding 2.00 m deep; load, cart away and dispose off site | m³ | 420.00 | $18.50 | $7,770 |
| 1.02 | Plain concrete grade 15 blinding, 50 mm thick, to receive foundations | m² | 640.00 | $9.40 | $6,016 |
| 1.03 | Reinforced concrete grade 30 in isolated pad and strip foundations | m³ | 96.00 | $141.83 | $13,615.68 |
| 1.04 | High-yield steel reinforcement, cut, bent and fixed in position | t | 7.20 | $1,320 | $9,504 |
| 1.05 | Sawn formwork to vertical sides of foundations, height not exceeding 1.00 m | m² | 210.00 | $31.50 | $6,615 |
| 1.06 | Provisional sum for ground-improvement works, to be expended as directed | sum | 1 | $65,000 | $65,000 |
| Carried to collection | $108,520.68 | ||||
Four fields travel with each rate: the unit, the location it was priced in, the month it was priced, and its source. Strip any one away and what is left is folklore that looks like data.
| Description | Unit | Rate | Location | Priced | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excavate to reduce levels, n.e. 2.00 m deep, dispose off site | m³ | $18.50 | Site A — coastal | 2026-06 | Priced tender | Current |
| Reinforced concrete grade 30 in pad and strip foundations | m³ | $141.83 | Site A — coastal | 2026-06 | Own build-up | Current |
| Ditto, same specification | m³ | $167.20 | Site B — remote | 2026-05 | Priced tender | Current |
| High-yield reinforcement, cut, bent and fixed | t | $1,320 | Site A — coastal | 2026-04 | Subcontract quote | Current |
| Sawn formwork to sides of foundations, n.e. 1.00 m high | m² | $31.50 | Site A — coastal | 2024-11 | Priced tender | Stale |
When the year turns, apply a percentage across the schedule — scoped to what you choose, with a preview before it commits and an undo after. The uplift is written into the rate's provenance rather than overwriting its history.
That distinction is the whole point. A rate that says "2024 tender, uplifted 34% in 2026" can be argued with. A rate that has quietly become a 2026 rate cannot.
It would be easy to bundle a starter schedule and call it a feature. We do not, and the reason is that a unit rate is a function of a specific market, a specific month, a specific supply chain and a specific contractor's productivity. A rate lifted from another surveyor's job in another city is not evidence; it is an anecdote with a decimal point.
Worse, a bundled schedule would be authoritative-looking and wrong, which is the most dangerous combination in cost work. What BillMate provides instead is the machinery to build, locate, date, maintain and defend your rates. The full position.
The library is also portable in both directions. Export it to CSV whenever you like — it is your data, it leaves as easily as it arrived, and restoring a backup merges libraries rather than overwriting them.
Building a rate before you have a library to build it from? The unit rate build-up calculator on QS Fieldbook works through one rate in the browser — material, labour, plant, overheads and profit, with every assumption visible — and nothing to install or sign up for. When the rate is one you would use again, that is the point at which a library starts earning its keep.
The whole library is free. It is the part of this that compounds.