Assign Contingency for Sub and Vendor Scopes


image of a male and female construction project manager on site
Use Case

The estimator reviews vendor quotes, looking for potential risk. He notes a large price difference in quotes for the plumbing scope of work. He uses InEight Estimate to build in a contingency allowance to address this potential risk.


Learn to use InEight Estimate to add a contingency allowance to help mitigate risk for sub and vendor selection.

In a situation where subcontractors have quoted similar scopes of work, but there is a large difference in pricing, if you were to select the cheaper option, it could cost you more in the long run if the subcontractor does not perform satisfactorily.

In this section, we will look at how to add a contingency allowance to help mitigate this type of risk.

In the following example, we have two quotes (A and B) of similar scope but a large price difference.

Adding a Contingency Allowance

In order to manage this type of risk, you can add a cost item to the estimate for "Contingency".


Link Excel Spreadsheet to InEight Estimate

We need to determine the contingency value with some degree of accuracy. Most companies will already have some type of Excel spreadsheet (such as a risk matrix) that they use to assist with these types of contingency calculations. InEight Estimate can be linked to Excel for doing side calculations and have them automatically update into Estimate.

For this example, we want to link our Contingency cost item’s Total Allowance field with a value calculated in our spreadsheet.

Watch the video below and learn more from the resource link to see how to link a field in InEight Estimate to an Excel spreadsheet:

Linking to Excel


Leverage Contingency Calculations in Linked Excel Spreadsheet

Now that you have linked the spreadsheet to InEight Estimate, you can perform your calculations in Excel and the value will automatically update in InEight Estimate.

Step 1

Using the linked spreadsheet, perform contingency allowance calculations. These type of calculations will be company specific.

Step 2

Confirm the Contingency Allowance field has updated in InEight Estimate based on the previous calculations.

In this case, we linked our total calculated contingency amount in Excel:

To our Contingency Cost Item’s Total Allowance field:

This contingency cost is now part of your cost estimate and will cover the potential risks from your subcontractor.


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