Material buyout by package, with every gap listed before your PM buys.

After award, your PM or purchasing lead breaks the takeoff into packages: switchgear and distribution, lighting, wire and conduit, devices and boxes, and specialty items such as a generator. Distributors quote each one, the engineer returns submittals on its own schedule, and someone logs which package is quoted, approved, released and promised for which date.

In the proof of concept, AI works from copies of the same bill of material, quotes and submittal returns and drafts that buyout log: each package with its spec section, the quotes lined up item by item against your quantities, and what the package still lacks before anyone can buy it. Every price stays as the distributor wrote it, and the draft adds none. Your PM holds the draft against the log your team kept.

Gear waits on its engineering. A switchboard quote can be complete and still not be ready to release. Wisconsin's state master electrical specification wants the preliminary short circuit and coordination study in front of the engineer before the distribution equipment shop drawings get final approval or the equipment is released for manufacture, and it has the firm doing the study send the contractor its list of needed data right after award. A gear package with a good price and no study behind it goes on the draft's list as not ready, with the study named as the missing piece.

Lead times and deliveries carry owner rules. Answering a bidder on a switchgear replacement in January 2025, Miami-Dade County said extensive equipment lead times would justify a non-compensable extension of substantial completion, and that the contractor must confirm and identify them on award with a schedule for the county's review. The University of Michigan wants three working days' notice of equipment deliveries to the owner, between 8 AM and 2 PM on workdays, and may turn away one that arrives unannounced. Wisconsin considers off-site storage only with prior approval and its Storage Agreement Form DOA-4528, generally refuses wire, conduit and fittings for it, and takes nothing whose shop drawings aren't approved. The draft sets each quoted lead time beside the date the schedule needs the material.

The spec decides which quotes can be used. Michigan's section accepts substitutions for specified products only if proposed and approved in writing at the time of bid, so an unnamed brand quoted after award is not one your PM can simply take. Wisconsin's interior lighting section lists three catalog numbers for each luminaire type and accepts others that meet or exceed the performance shown, while its diesel generator section wants the supplier to be an authorized distributor of the generator's maker with service facilities within 100 miles of the site. Spares ride along as well: the same master spec asks for three spare fuses of each size and type, and one extra luminaire and one LED driver of each type. The draft marks every quoted brand against the names in the section and lists spares that no quote carries.

Public money adds origin questions. On direct federal construction, FAR clause 52.225-9, Buy American, Construction Materials, allows only domestic construction material unless an exception applies. FAR 25.003 evaluates emergency life safety systems, such as emergency lighting, fire alarm and audio evacuation systems, as one construction material however their parts arrive, treats components of unknown origin as foreign, and counts material the government buys directly as supplies. A request to use foreign material lists the item, quantity, price, delivery time, supplier and a justification, and one made after award must explain why it wasn't made before. On Wisconsin state work under the Build America, Buy America Act, every submittal cover is marked compliant or exempt by waiver, and a listed maker that can't comply goes through the equals and substitutions article. The draft flags quote lines that say nothing about origin; it gives no compliance opinion.

What your reviewer will watch: packages with a single quote, quote lines whose quantities or units don't match the bill of material, fittings, spares or freight excluded in a footnote, quotes past their stated validity, lead times counted from approval on one quote and from order on another, gear quoted before its study, and any line where origin matters and the quote is silent.

After your reviewer's yes, the job runs for about 30 days on an open job, keeping its buyout log current as quotes and submittal returns come in.

Your PM decides and buys. Every draft log waits for review, purchase orders and releases go out from your team, and any question for a distributor is written out for your PM to send or drop.

The live job's fixed price is agreed before you sign. Later jobs are priced one at a time, and monthly support begins once a job is live.