What does supply-and-fix mean?

A composite rate covering the material, the labour to install it, and the associated operations — for a drain run, the excavation, bedding, surround and backfill as well as the pipe itself.

How do I know which basis a bill expects?

Read the preamble, which defines what rates are deemed to include. Also check whether operations like excavation and disposal appear as separate measured lines — if they do, they are not inside the item rate.

Why does it matter so much?

Because the material can be a small fraction of a composite rate. Pricing supply-only against a supply-and-fix expectation can leave a large part of the real cost unpriced, and the error is only discovered once the work is under way.

Home / Insights / Supply-only vs supply-and-fix

Supply-only vs supply-and-fix: the difference that loses money

Supreme Building Services · in Construction estimating

A supply-only rate is the material delivered to site and nothing else. A supply-and-fix (composite) rate covers the material, the labour, and everything the operation drags with it. For a drain run, supply-and-fix includes the trench excavation, bedding, pipe surround and backfill — not just the pipe. Pricing a delivered tonne as though it were laid is one of the fastest ways to win a job and lose money on it.

The same item, two very different numbers

Take a below-ground drain run. Supply-only is the pipe and fittings tipped at the gate. Supply-and-fix is a sequence: set out, excavate the trench, support it, lay bedding, lay and joint the pipe, surround it, backfill, compact, and cart away the surplus.

The material can be a small fraction of the composite rate. Everything else is plant, labour, time and disposal — and none of it appears in a merchant's price list.

Where the confusion comes from

Bills do not always spell it out in the line description. The definition usually sits in the preamble, which states what rates are deemed to include. Two bills for near-identical work can allocate the same operations completely differently — one folds excavation into the drainage rate, the other measures excavation as its own line.

If you price the second bill's drainage rate as though it were the first bill's, you have either double-counted the excavation or missed it entirely. Both are wrong; one of them is expensive.

How to check before you price

Read the preamble. It is the part that defines the rules and the part everyone skips.
Look for the operation elsewhere. If excavation, disposal or bedding appear as their own measured lines, they are not in the drainage rate.
Sanity-check against a known figure. If your rate looks close to the raw material cost, you are probably pricing supply-only against a supply-and-fix expectation.
Ask. On a tender you can usually submit a clarification. A question before submission is free; a wrong assumption after award is not.

Why our rate card keeps them apart

Our element rate card holds the two bases separately and labels which one each line used — "material supplied loose to site" or "composite supply+fix". Merging them would produce a tidier-looking card and a dangerous one, because a delivered tonne would silently price as though it were laid and compacted.

When you run a bill through the BOQ pricer, each priced line shows its basis alongside the figure, so you can see which is which. More on how the bands work in the estimating guide, and on reading the bill itself in what a Bill of Quantities is.

Want a second pair of eyes on a bill?

Send it over. We will tell you what basis it expects and where the risk sits before you price it.