Construction Estimating Agent
The Construction Estimating Agent builds up rates from labour, plant, materials and subcontract prices, applies preliminaries and general, overheads and profit, and prices the BoQ for tender. It works alongside estimating tools such as Candy and Excel, so your estimators keep their method while the repetitive build-up is done for them.
Ideal forEstimators
The difference
From 3-5 days per tender to 1-1.5 days
Your estimators price more tenders with the same team and spend review time on risk and strategy.
Done by hand
3-5 days per tender
With the Vanine agent
1-1.5 days
Time returned to your team
70%
Indicative figures. We measure your own baseline in the first fortnight so the numbers you see are yours.
Hit tight tender deadlines
Public and private tender periods leave little time to price hundreds of items. The agent drafts the build-up so estimators can focus on strategy and risk.
Rates you can explain
Every rate shows its labour, plant, material and subcontract components, so reviews and post-tender clarifications are straightforward.
Consistency across tenders
Your standard outputs, wastage factors and markups are applied the same way every time, reducing pricing errors between estimators.
Capabilities
Price tenders faster with rates you can trace and defend.
Built for estimators, commercial managers and tender teams at South African building and civil contractors pricing bills of quantities for public and private tenders.
Rate build-up
Builds unit rates from your labour gangs and outputs, plant rates, material prices with wastage and subcontract quotes.
Preliminaries and general
Prices time-related and fixed P&G items from the programme, site establishment requirements and contract conditions.
Overheads and profit
Applies your overhead recovery and profit margins by section or trade according to your tender strategy.
Contract conditions allowances
Flags pricing allowances needed for guarantees, retention, penalties, CPAP and health and safety requirements under the Construction Regulations 2014.
Price checks
Compares rates against your historical projects and flags outliers, unpriced items and arithmetic errors.
Tender summary
Produces the priced bill, a tender summary and an adjudication report for management review in Candy-compatible or Excel format.
How it works
From your systems to a result you sign off
Your estimator reviews every rate and management approves the tender price. Submitting the bid stays with your authorised signatory.
Connect the places your rates and pricing already live.
The tender BoQ, specifications, supplier and subcontractor quotes, and your historical rates from Candy, Excel, Outlook or your ERP. Already use something else? We connect that too.
- OpenAI Frontier
- Your own AI platform or models
- Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, Excel)
- Copilot Studio
- Candy
- WinQS and BuildSmart
- SAP, Syspro and Sage ERP
- Supplier and subcontractor quotes via Outlook
Runs on request in Teams or OpenAI Frontier, or on your own AI platform, using the models your organisation approves.
A priced BoQ, rate build-ups and a tender summary in Candy-compatible or Excel format.
Step by step
- 01
A tender BoQ and documents are received.
- 02
The agent reads the scope, contract conditions and quotes received.
- 03
It builds unit rates and prices P&G, overheads and profit.
- 04
It flags outliers, gaps and pricing risks.
- 05
Your estimator reviews and management adjudicates the tender price.
- 06
Your authorised signatory signs and submits the bid.
Deployment
Runs inside the tools your team already uses
The same agent and the same cited output, delivered three ways: through the AI assistant you have rolled out, on a model you host yourself, or inside your own software.
In the frontier assistant you already pay for
We publish the agent as an MCP server. Add it as a connector and your team calls it from the chat they use every day, with no new tool to learn.
"Build up rates from resources"
- tender
- Warehouse and offices
- tool
- Candy
On a model you host yourself
Run the agent on open-weight models in your data centre or private cloud. Your rates and pricing never leave your network, which keeps POPIA and data residency straightforward.
- Llama
- Mistral
- Ollama
- or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
Inside your own software
Trigger a run from your own workflows, and push the finished output into your ERP, GRC or reporting systems. We build the integration with your team.
- REST API
- Webhooks
- Batch jobs
- Embeddable review panel
Governed the same way, every route
Whichever way your team reaches the agent, identity, permissions and audit stay with your existing controls.
- Single sign-on through Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace
- Reads only the documents each user is already allowed to open
- Every tool call written to an audit log you can export
How we deliver it
One agent, three ways to hold it
Start where your team already works, then take it as far into your systems as the value justifies.
DATA SECURITY & PRIVACY
Your rates and pricing stay yours.
The agent runs inside your tenancy, reads only what each task needs, and never trains on your rates and pricing. Every step is logged so your auditors can see exactly what it touched.
Built for regulated work.
+YOUR RATES AND PRICING NEVER LEAVE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
More agents
More agents we build for South African enterprises
Each one is built on the same foundation: your documents, your rules, and your people signing off.
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