DeriveTakeoff turns the derived building into BOM lines in six categories (Framing, Sheathing, Trim, Doors & Windows, Foundation, Fasteners), each with an S618 usage name, a quantity and unit, and a note explaining where the number came from. Headline numbers come with it: footprint, roof area, wall area, post count, truss count, roof and wall panel counts, screw count.
Also called: BOM · bill of materials · material list · takeoff · how much lumber
A complete material list the moment the design is right
Framing, Sheathing, Trim, Doors & Windows, Foundation and Fasteners, each line carrying a standard usage name, a quantity, a unit and a note saying where the number came from. Alongside them the headline figures: footprint, roof area, wall area, post count, truss count, panel counts and the screw count. Move the building four feet and every one of those moves with it.
It orders sticks, not feet
Every cut is packed into lengths a yard sells — 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 20 foot dimensional, 12 through 24 for treated 6x6 columns, which are never spliced. Each line reports its stock mix, what gets consumed, what gets purchased and what ends up as drop. The waste is shown rather than rounded away, because a yard cannot quote a number of feet and you cannot plan around a figure that hides the offcuts.
Steel counted by panel and by length, the way it is priced
Panels are counted per roof face and per wall run at their real length, padded for cut waste on the angled faces — 15% on triangles, 10% on trapezoids, none on rectangles — and split where a run passes the 40ft mill and trucking ceiling. Every panel line carries its length as a number, because steel is sold by the foot. A sheet count billed against a per-foot rate is how a 4,000 square foot roof once came out at $225.
Trim measured off the trim that is drawn
Ridge cap, hip cap, rake, eave, corner, curb, break cap, headwall flashing, closure strips and opening trim, in linear feet taken off the pieces in the model. Corner trim accumulates the tallest leg per corner, so a two-leg L is not billed twice. Trim is the category most often short on a delivery, precisely because it is normally read off a drawing by eye.
Headers and jamb posts are on the list because they are in the model
Every opening puts full-height jamb posts each side, a header sized from its clear span, cripples above it and a sill under a window onto the order. Past a 9ft span the jambs double into a laminated column; past the 2x12 band the header becomes LVL and is flagged special order. Headers and jamb posts are the two items most likely to be missing from a delivery and the two most expensive to be short of.
The concrete and hardware nobody can see once the dirt goes back
Post-hole concrete in cubic yards, a footing pad under every post, an uplift-restraint line per hole, and purlin hangers, truss plates and ties counted where two members genuinely meet. Lean-to and porch columns get the same treatment as wall posts. These are the lines that get argued about on site and left off orders, and they are on this one because they are drawn.
Two files: one to buy from, one to cut from
An order file listing category, usage, item, quantity, unit, consumed, purchased and waste footage, stock mix and special-order flags. A cut file listing, per stock piece, the cuts taken out of it and the drop left on it. Both open with the building they belong to and both carry the not-on-this-list section — engineering and stamp, labour, freight, site grading, permits — so nothing downstream mistakes it for an engineered package.
- 1Framing lumber is first-fit from each member's cut length and nominal into yard stock.
- 2Roof area, roof panels and trim are read from the drawn panels; the engine's visual ridge and break laps are subtracted because they are not extra steel on the order.
- 3Wall steel is counted per decomposed wall rectangle at ITS height (mono high wall, wainscot split), with gable triangles and clerestory risers as their own lines.
- 4Every formula's provenance is stated on the line: screws are the SmartBuild sheathing-package formula, panel coverage comes from the roofing product's own coverage width, concrete is hole volume per post.
- 5Package options (slab, insulation, liner, partition, cupola, ridge vent, Perma-Column, FPSF, gravel floor, insulated openings) add their own lines when switched on.
Quantities counted from a formula and a picture drawn from geometry are two different opinions about the same building, and the day they disagree is the day the yard delivers the wrong package. Every line on the takeoff is measured off the same members and skins that are drawn, and each one points back at the geometry it came from. Wall steel counted per wall rectangle rather than as one eave-height perimeter is what makes a monoslope or a wainscotted wall come out right instead of quietly short.
- Manual takeoff from a drawing.
- Quantity formulas that drift from the geometry after a change.
- Wall steel counted at one height on a building with two.
See it on your own jobs
Twenty minutes, your numbers, no slide deck. We’ll build one of your real buildings in front of you and send you the estimate link at the end — yours to keep either way.
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