Bill of quantities (przedmiar robót)
A bill of quantities lists the planned works in technological order, with quantities and a costing basis for every item. It is calculated from the design before work starts, and the cost estimate as well as later settlements with subcontractors are built on it.
A typical item has a reference to a KNR catalogue (the Polish standard norms for labour, material and plant), a description of the work, a unit, and a quantity derived from the drawings together with the supporting calculation. The KNR reference says what labour, material and plant sit behind the item, so two firms pricing the same item arrive at comparable numbers.
A bill of quantities differs from a site measurement (obmiar). The first is prepared before the works, from the design; the second measures what was actually built. Settlements with a subcontractor follow the measurement, and the gap between the two is what most site disputes are about.
In Poland the bill is produced in Norma PRO or Zuzia and travels between the parties as an exchange file (.ath). That file, not a PDF, is what should enter the company's system. Its items then become stage budgets, the scope of a subcontractor's contract, and the grid that cost invoices land on.
The symptom is three lists of the same works: the bill in the estimator's file, the budget in a controller's spreadsheet, the subcontract scope in Word. Each is numbered differently and nobody agrees which one gets settled.