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How do I load a contractor's or architect's bill of quantities into my quotation?

Do you receive a bill of quantities or specification from a contractor, architect or client? Then you load it straight into your quotation. You do not have to retype anything: every row or post from the file becomes a line on your quotation. Then you link those lines to your own posts in one go, so that your calculation is ready immediately.

Robaws reads two kinds of files:

an Excel bill of quantities: you indicate yourself which column contains what;
an RSX, ZSX or CUF file: a specification, priced tender statement or estimate in a fixed format. Robaws extracts the chapters and posts from it itself.

Uploading a bill of quantities or specification

Open the quotation, click Upload above the quotation lines and choose the file. What happens next depends on the kind of file.

An Excel bill of quantities

The Import measurement window shows the content of your Excel. For each column, indicate which column in Robaws it corresponds to.
Click Import. The rows appear as lines on your quotation.

You can assign these columns:

Column in Robaws	What goes in it?
Description	The description of the line. Mandatory.
Line nr.	The line number from the bill of quantities.
Post nr.	The post number from the bill of quantities. You use this to link the lines to your own posts (see below).
Quantity	The quantity.
Type	The type of the line, e.g. FH or VH.
Unit type	The unit, e.g. m² or pc.
Unitprice	The unit price. Only use the amount, without the € sign.
Extended description	The extended description of the line.
Allocation key	The allocation key. If it does not exist on the quotation yet, Robaws creates it.

A few rules when loading:

If you do not assign a column as Description, the import does not start. A row with an empty description is skipped.
A row without a Quantity and without a Unitprice becomes a text line. It does not count towards the price calculation.
So it is best to also assign Quantity and Unitprice.

Avoid formulas or references in the cells you import. They can cause the upload to fail.

An RSX, ZSX or CUF file

You do not have to assign columns here. If the quotation already has lines, Robaws first asks whether you want to overwrite them. If you confirm, the existing lines are replaced by the content of the file:

File	What is it?	What ends up on your quotation?
RSX	A RAW specification, without prices.	The chapters from the specification and, per post, a line with the post number, the description, the unit, the quantity, the type and the specification text as extended description. The prices only come in when you link your posts (see below).
ZSX	A RAW priced tender statement (inschrijvingsstaat): a completed specification with prices.	The same chapters and posts, with the price from the file. If the file only contains totals, Robaws calculates the unit price: the total divided by the quantity. A post with the unit EUR gets quantity 1 and the total as price. The final chapter with one-off costs, general costs and profit and risk is not taken over.
CUF	An estimate from calculation software.	The groupings from the estimate as chapters and lines, with per estimate line a build-up for material, labor, equipment, subcontracting and other costs. If the EAN code of a line exists as an item number in Robaws, Robaws links that item.

A few rules when loading:

A ZSX or CUF file does not contain a separate cost price. Robaws uses the price from the file as both cost price and sales price, so the margin on those lines is 0.
With a ZSX file, the line totals can differ from the file by a few cents, because Robaws rounds the unit price.
If Robaws cannot extract a single usable line from the file, you get the message No valid lines could be generated from imported file.

RSX and ZSX are RAW formats used mainly in the Dutch civil engineering and infrastructure sector (GWW).

Linking the lines to your own posts

After the upload, the lines are on your quotation, but still without your calculation. With Assign posts, Robaws links them in one go to the posts from your post library, based on the post number. For an Excel bill of quantities, that is the column you marked as Post nr.; in an RSX file, the post number is already on every line.

Make sure your posts have the same post number in the Post field as in the bill of quantities or specification.
In the quotation, click ... above the lines and choose Assign posts.
For each line, Robaws looks for the post with the same post number and links it to the line.

This is how the linking works:

Only lines that do not have a post or item yet and that have a post number are linked. Lines that are already linked stay unchanged. So you can safely use the button again after you have created extra posts.
If Robaws does not find a post with that number, it looks for an item with that item number.
The quantity and the description from the file are kept. The post brings along its extended description, price and, in a calculated quotation, its full build-up and parameters.
The unit has to match. If the post has a different unit than the line, Robaws does not link it. Afterwards you get a Result overview with those lines: per line you see the post number, the post found and both units.

Does the bill of quantities say 'ST' and Robaws 'piece'? Add 'ST' as an alternative name to the unit 'piece'. Robaws then treats both as the same unit and does link the post. How that works is explained in Working with unit types.

Do you change a post in your post library later on? With ... > Reset posts you retrieve the latest version of the posts again for the lines on your quotation.

Updated on: 02/11/2026

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