What preliminaries go into a commercial landscape tender?

What are preliminaries in a landscape tender?

Preliminaries are the time-related and fixed costs of delivering a job that are not tied to one measured item in the Bill of Quantities. Turf, paving and planting each have a quantity and a rate. Supervision, fencing, skip bins and inductions do not, yet the job cannot be built without them.

Prelims sit between the measured work and your margin. The overall pricing method treats them as one step of six. This guide goes deeper into that step: what belongs in it, how to build each cost up, and where landscape subcontractors most often leave money behind.

Preliminaries are not overheads. Overheads are the cost of running your business and are recovered across all your work. Preliminaries are caused by this particular site and this particular programme, so they change from job to job and must be priced fresh every time.

What is the difference between time-related and fixed preliminaries?

A time-related preliminary is a cost that grows the longer you are on site, such as supervision, equipment hire or traffic control. A fixed preliminary is a one-off cost that is the same whether the job runs short or long, such as preparing safety documentation or a final clean.

The split matters for two reasons. Time-related costs are the ones that blow out if the programme slips, so you need to know which they are to claim for delay. And many head contractors ask for them in separate columns, because that lets them adjust a price fairly if the duration changes.

Some items are both. Temporary fencing has a fixed cost to install and remove, plus a hire cost for every week it stands. Pricing those two parts separately is what keeps the item accurate when the programme moves.

How do you price preliminaries from the programme?

Price preliminaries from the programme because the programme tells you how long each resource is needed and how many times you mobilise. The core formula for a time-related item is simple: duration × resource × your cost for that resource per period.

1. Get the programme. Use the head contractor's tender programme if one is issued. If not, draw a simple one yourself from the scope, and state it as an assumption in your submission.
2. Mark your time on site. Identify when landscape works start and finish in each area, including gaps where you demobilise and come back.
3. Count the site visits and stages. Each return to site is a mobilisation with its own travel, set-up and plant movement.
4. List every resource that runs with time. Supervisor, hired plant, fencing, bins, traffic control and amenities each get a duration.
5. Multiply duration by resource. Use your own current costs from recent jobs and live supplier or hire quotes, not rates carried over from an old estimate.
6. Add the fixed items once, or once per stage. Documentation, set-out, testing and establishment are priced per occurrence.
7. Add the post-completion period. Watering, maintenance and defects visits are priced as visits × resource over the period the contract sets.

Keep the build-up as a working sheet behind the tender. If the programme changes after award, that sheet is what lets you show exactly which time-related costs moved and by how much, which is the foundation of a delay or variation claim.

How do staging and access change preliminaries?

Staging multiplies fixed preliminaries. A job built in one continuous run pays for establishment, plant floats, set-out and inductions once. The same scope released in several separable portions pays for most of those every time a stage opens.

Staging also stretches time-related costs. Landscape work usually follows other trades, so a staged building can leave you waiting between areas. Decide whether you will demobilise and return, or keep a presence on site, and price whichever the programme actually forces.

Access changes preliminaries as much as staging does. A tight inner-city site with no laydown area can mean smaller plant, more deliveries, traffic control for every drop and hand-carrying materials. A live site, such as an operating school or hospital, can add restricted hours, escorts and extra protection. None of these show up in a measured quantity, so they must be read from the tender scope, the site information and a site visit, then priced as prelims.

Should preliminaries be shown separately or spread through the rates?

Follow the head contractor's pricing schedule. If it has a preliminaries section, price prelims there and keep your measured rates as the direct cost of each item. If it has no prelims line, spread them through the rates and say so in your clarifications.

Head contractors often ask for prelims separately, and sometimes split into time-related and fixed. A separate line lets them compare bidders on a like for like basis, and it gives both sides an agreed number to adjust if the programme changes. Hiding prelims in the rates makes that adjustment harder to argue later.

Spreading prelims through the rates has its own risk. If quantities are cut or an item is deleted, the prelims attached to it disappear with it, even though your supervision and fencing costs have not changed. Where you must spread them, keep the separate build-up on file so you can show what each rate carries. A priced Bill of Quantities built against the client's own schedule makes this decision for you.

Which preliminaries are most often missed?

The preliminaries most often missed are the ones that happen outside the main construction period or repeat without anyone noticing. Check each of these before you submit:

• Remobilisation for later stages. Pricing establishment once when the programme shows several separate returns to site.
• Watering during establishment. The weeks between planting and handover when someone must keep new plants and turf alive.
• Maintenance and defects visits. Labour, travel and replacement stock for the whole period the contract requires after practical completion.
• Plant idle time and extra floats. Machines that stay on hire between stages, or have to be floated in again.
• Protection of finished work. Fencing, covers or barriers to protect new turf and paving from other trades.
• Specified testing. Soil tests or other tests written into the specification that nobody reads until the job starts.
• Induction time. Each worker's induction on a large commercial site, repeated for new starters and subcontractors.
• Project-specific insurance. Cover levels or policies the contract requires that your standing insurance does not include.

Most of these live in the conditions of contract and the specification's general section, not on the drawings. Reading those documents in full, as covered in the guide to documents needed to price a landscape tender, is the only reliable way to catch them.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between preliminaries and overheads?

Preliminaries are costs caused by this particular job, such as supervision, fencing and traffic management on this site. Overheads are the running costs of your business, such as office staff, vehicles and yard costs, recovered across all the work you win. Price prelims per job and recover overheads separately.

Should preliminaries be priced as a percentage of the contract?

No. A percentage has no link to what the job actually needs. Preliminaries depend on duration, the number of stages, access and the contract requirements, so two jobs of similar value can carry very different prelims. Build them up from the programme instead.

Do head contractors want preliminaries priced separately?

Many do, because a separate prelims line lets them compare bidders and value time-related costs if the programme changes. Follow the tender pricing schedule. If it has no prelims line, spread them through the rates and keep your own build-up on file.

How do you price preliminaries for a staged landscape job?

Treat each stage as its own mobilisation. Count the stages in the programme, then price establishment, plant transport, set-out, fencing changes and inductions for each one. Add the time-related costs for each stage separately, because supervision and hire run for as long as each stage is open.

Are maintenance periods part of preliminaries?

Often, yes. If the contract requires a maintenance or defects period, the visits, labour, watering, replacement plants and travel for that period must be priced somewhere. Some schedules list it as its own item, others expect it in prelims. Either way, it must not be left out.

Key takeaways

• Preliminaries are job-specific costs not tied to one measured item, and they are not the same as overheads.
• Split prelims into time-related and fixed, because time-related costs are the ones that move when the programme does.
• Build prelims from the programme: duration × resource for time-related items, once per occurrence for fixed ones.
• Staging multiplies fixed prelims and tight or live sites add access costs that never appear in the takeoff.
• Follow the head contractor's schedule on showing prelims separately, and keep your build-up on file either way.
• Check the usual misses: remobilisation, establishment watering, maintenance visits, testing, induction time and protection.