Construction Software Glossary

Tracking all costs — labor, materials, equipment and subcontractors — against a specific project (job) so actual cost can be compared to the estimate and margin monitored in real time.

A construction accounting report that compares billings to costs and percent-complete to surface over-billings and under-billings, a key indicator of project financial health.

The standard American Institute of Architects progress-billing forms: G702 (Application and Certificate for Payment) summarizes the request; G703 (Continuation Sheet) breaks it down by line item, including retainage.

A percentage of each progress payment withheld by the owner until the project is substantially complete, used as an incentive to finish the work.

A formal amendment to the construction contract that adds, removes or modifies scope, with the corresponding adjustment to price and schedule.

A scheduling technique that maps activities and their dependencies to find the longest chain (the critical path) — the sequence that determines the project's finish date.

The Defense Contract Management Agency's 14-point checklist for schedule quality — covering logic, leads/lags, float, hard constraints, high-duration activities and more — used to test whether a CPM schedule is sound before relying on it.

Running a schedule thousands of times with activity durations sampled from ranges to produce a probability distribution of finish dates (e.g. an 80% chance of finishing by a given date) instead of a single optimistic line.

A time-based extension of earned value that measures schedule performance in units of time (SPI-t, SV-t), giving a more accurate read of schedule status late in a project than traditional earned value.

After-the-fact techniques — windows, time-impact (TIA) and but-for analysis — used to quantify and attribute project delays, often for claims and disputes.

A formal question from the contractor to the design team to clarify drawings, specifications or conditions, tracked so answers don't get lost and delays are documented.

Documentation (shop drawings, product data, samples) the contractor submits for the design team's review and approval before fabricating or installing work.

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing — the building systems (HVAC, power and lighting, water and waste) that MEP contractors design, estimate and install.

On government-funded projects, contractors must pay locally prevailing wages (e.g. Davis-Bacon) and file certified payroll reports proving compliance for every worker each week.

The list of remaining or deficient items to correct before a project is considered complete and final payment is released.

Formatting set on an individual estimate line that prints on the customer proposal — a highlight, bold or italic text, a rule below the line, a page break before it, or a short note under the row. The marks belong to the line, so they survive revisions and versions instead of being reapplied each time the document is regenerated.

A rendering of the proposal document shown beside the estimate as it is built, using the same renderer and data as the copy that will be sent — so formatting and pricing can be checked without a generate-download-open round trip for every change.

Named groupings of estimate lines — phases, alternates, buildings — that a proposal prints as their own sections, each with a heading and a subtotal, with pricing shown per item, per group, or as a total only. Lines no group claims still print, under a heading such as Additional Items.

A pre-configured item that belongs with something already on the estimate — a factory start-up, a commissioning visit, a first service year — offered on the lines it applies to, priced as a fixed amount or a percentage of that line, and booked to the business unit that performs the work.

Whether a state charges sales tax on the labor portion of construction work, which varies by state, sometimes by the type of property, and in a few states is genuinely unsettled. Calculating it correctly means separating each line into labor, material, equipment, service and freight and applying the state's rule to each part rather than one blended rate.