Planning guide for 2027
How do you check a takeoff before you bid in 2027?
Check a takeoff in five passes before it becomes a bid: the plan set and scope, the quantities that carry the most cost, your own waste factors, a dated local price on every large line, and the conditions only a site visit shows.
Set up the parts that carry over from job to job once, before your first 2027 bid, then run the same passes on every job and keep the notes with the estimate.
Written to plan 2027 work. It describes what is true today and what to check during 2027, and it makes no forecasts. Portravo facts and prices are as of November 13, 2026. This guide will be revised when those facts are re-checked.
Portravo publishes this guide. Where it describes Portravo, it uses what the product pages state.
Before your first bid of 2027
Do these once. They stop a 2026 number from being reused unchecked.
Set up once
- Update your rate card with the loaded hourly rate you will actually pay each role in 2027: wages, payroll taxes, insurance and any raises you have already agreed. In Portravo, labor is hours times the rate card you enter.
- Write your own waste list: one line per material you buy often, the allowance you use and the reason for it (cut pattern, stock lengths, breakage, supplier minimums).
- Ask each supplier how long a written quote is held and whether their price list changes at the start of the year. Write the answers down.
- Choose your bid validity period, and keep it no longer than your suppliers hold their quotes.
- List the scopes you never self-perform and who you sub them to, so a missing sub quote shows up on day one, not the night before.
- Save a blank working file for every bid. The estimate template has columns for quantity, waste, unit cost, price source and date, and exclusions.
Pass 1: the plan set and the scope
- 01Match every sheet number and revision to the drawing index and the latest addendum. A count taken from a superseded sheet is wrong however carefully it was made.
- 02Write down which trades and scopes are in your bid, which are excluded, and which are alternates.
- 03Read the general notes, the specifications and the addenda for work that is described but never drawn.
- 04Put every open question in one clarification list with the sheet it came from, and send it before the bid date rather than guessing.
Scope a takeoff cannot see
- Demolition, removal and disposal, including the dumpster and haul-off.
- Temporary power, lighting, water, protection and toilets.
- Patching and repair of existing finishes around the new work.
- Permits, inspections, testing and engineering, and who pays for each.
- Equipment rental, scaffolding and lifts.
- Site access, staging, cleanup and final clean.
- Anything in the specifications or the addenda that has no symbol on the plans.
A takeoff lists what the drawings show. Work that was never drawn needs this separate check. More in Can I trust AI takeoff on a bid?
Pass 2: the quantities to verify by hand
You do not need to recount everything. Recount the lines where an error costs the most, and the lines where the drawing does not settle the number.
Recount these yourself
- The lines that carry most of the material cost. Sort by extended price and work down until what is left is small change.
- Any line the takeoff flagged. In Portravo those carry an evidence label such as Needs recount, Sources disagree or Not measured.
- Area lines that depend on a height the sheet may not state: drywall, insulation and paint.
- Roof quantities: confirm whether pitch and overhang are applied, because plan area alone understates a pitched roof.
- Counts where a schedule and a plan disagree, such as a fixture schedule and the floor plan.
- Joist and stud counts against the spacing printed on the plans, and pipe lengths per size against the total printed on the riser.
To calibrate, pick one sheet, count everything on it yourself, then compare. If you agree, recount the costliest lines on the other sheets. If you do not, find out why before relying on them. The public sample shows Portravo's own hand check of one sheet, including an item it got wrong.
Pass 3: waste factors are your call
A takeoff gives you a measured quantity. What you order is a separate number, and the allowance between the two belongs to you: it depends on your crew, your layout, your stock lengths and your supplier. This guide gives no waste percentages for that reason.
- 01Keep three numbers on every material line: measured quantity, waste allowance and order quantity. Do not overwrite the measured one.
- 02Apply the allowance from your own waste list, and write the reason next to it when it differs from your usual.
- 03Round to what the supplier sells: full sheets, stock lengths, full bags, minimum loads.
- 04Read what the takeoff already includes, so you do not add waste twice.
From the Portravo trade pages: no waste allowance is added to plumbing pipe, which comes back at its printed length. The landscape takeoff states its defaults, including the waste on sod, pipe and edging, for you to confirm, and mulch comes back as a low to high range you pick from. See the plumbing and landscape takeoff pages.
Pass 4: a dated local price on every large line
A price without a date is a guess about today. Before the bid goes out, every line that matters should say where its price came from and the day that price was good as of.
- 01For the highest-cost lines, get a written supplier quote for this job, with its date and how long it is held.
- 02Check that the quote matches the specification, the unit and the quantity on your takeoff, and whether tax, delivery and minimums are included.
- 03Ask about lead times and substitutions on anything special-order.
- 04Read the basis of any reference price. On a Portravo estimate each material line shows its source, location and as-of date: a local Home Depot price where one is available, otherwise the Portravo benchmark, labeled indexed when a regional adjustment was applied. Neither is a supplier quote held for your job.
- 05Re-check any price carried over from a 2026 bid before you use it in 2027, and replace it if your supplier's figure is different.
- 06Set the bid's validity date no later than the earliest supplier quote it depends on.
Portravo will check a supplier quote for free: send it for a quote audit and it comes back marked against the dated Portravo benchmark within one business day. It is a second look, not a price guarantee.
Pass 5: what to confirm on site
Drawings show intent. A site visit shows what the crew will actually meet. Walk it before you commit to the number, or carry the risk as a stated allowance.
On the walk
- Access for trucks and deliveries, staging, and where material can be stored.
- Existing conditions that differ from the plans: framing, finishes, utilities and anything to be removed.
- Dimensions the plans do not settle: ceiling heights, openings, runs between fixed points.
- Where the utilities are, and what has to be protected, shut down or relocated.
- Working hours, noise rules, parking and who else is on site.
- Dated photos of every area you priced, kept with the estimate.
For a job with no plan set, Portravo Live runs in a phone browser (camera, dictation and typed notes) and turns a site visit into quote lines you review before anything goes to the customer.
Before the bid goes out
- 01Check the arithmetic and the units on every line, and look for scope counted twice.
- 02Apply overhead and margin with one definition throughout. The markup and margin calculator shows the difference.
- 03Attach the exclusions, the clarifications and the validity date.
- 04Make sure each line the customer sees shows what it is based on. See What should a line item show the customer?
- 05Keep the working file, the quotes and the site photos together, so the next estimate starts from your notes.
The estimate review worksheet is a fill-in version of these checks you can print or keep as a file.
Questions
- Is this checklist different in 2027 from 2026?
- The passes are the same. What changes at a new year is the numbers you carry forward: labor rates, supplier quotes and any price saved from an old bid. Replace those before you reuse them.
- What waste factor should I use?
- Your own. This guide gives none, because the right allowance depends on your crew, your layout, your stock lengths and your supplier. Keep the measured quantity, the allowance and the order quantity as three separate numbers.
- Does Portravo do these checks for me?
- Some of them. Each takeoff line shows the sheet it was read from and an evidence label, and nothing is priced until you confirm or edit the line. The scope gaps, the waste, the supplier quotes and the site visit are still yours.
- Can I skip recounting when the takeoff has no flags?
- Not on the lines that carry the most cost. A line with no flag still needs your check against its sheet, and a takeoff with no flags can still miss scope that was never drawn.
What would change this advice
- Your suppliers change how long they hold a quote, which changes your bid validity date.
- A change to how Portravo labels evidence, prices materials or gates pricing. This guide describes the product as of November 13, 2026.
- A change to what a trade takeoff includes or leaves out, such as waste on pipe or the landscape defaults.
- You find something here that is wrong or out of date. Write to hello@portravo.com and we will check it, then correct and re-date the guide.