Checking files for the client — Viettel Telecom (2014–2016)
Construction department: checking payment and final-account files, appraising estimates, verifying quantities and unit rates, monitoring quality and programme.
TEACHING STAFF
Cu Van Son
Construction finance specialist at WinCommerce – WinEco, a construction economics engineer with more than ten years of estimating on the client side: building the BOQ and the budget, then checking the payment and final-account files himself across sites nationwide.
10+years in estimating and final accounts
2013construction economics degree, HUCE
2023teaching at the Institute since
Nationwidescope of sites under his control
ROLE AT THE INSTITUTE
Teaching estimating from the side that holds the budget
Someone who prices a bid and someone who guards the owner’s budget read the same bill of quantities in two different ways. Mr Son belongs to the second group.
- Teaches the quantity take-off and cost estimating course at the Institute since 2023, both online and on campus at Hanoi University of Civil Engineering.
- Estimating tied to a real budget — at WinCommerce and WinEco an estimate is not a bid figure but a spending limit that has to hold until the final account.
- Has sat on both sides of the table — he priced bids for an M&E contractor before moving to check the same paperwork as the client.
- Used to many small sites at once — payment control for new and refurbished stores nationwide, where one flawed template repeats across the whole batch.
CAREER
From contractor to client
Four stages, each looking at the same quantity paperwork from a different seat.
Pricing bids — Hanoi M&E construction company (2016)
Planning department: estimates and bid pricing, requests for proposal and proposal files, material take-off, programme and final-account files for electrical and plumbing packages.
Head of final accounts — Truong Giang Sa Pa (2016–2020)
Coordinating the review of contractors’ payment files at the Cau May resort, with estimate appraisal and the negotiation and drafting of contracts and variation annexes.
Construction finance specialist — WinCommerce and WinEco (2020 to date)
Estimates and budgets, BOQ preparation, budget and final-account control for the infrastructure, civil and M&E works of farms and of the retail network nationwide.
WHAT HE TEACHES
The parts he covers in most depth
- Quantity take-off from drawings — reading the drawings, splitting the work items, and the places quantities are most often missed or double-counted.
- Estimating in G8 — from the quantity schedule to a complete estimate file with the correct current cost structure.
- BOQ versus budget — how they differ, why a client needs both, and how to keep the two from drifting apart during the job.
- Payment and final-account files — what a complete file contains, what the reviewer looks at first, and the errors that get files sent back.
- Variations and contract annexes — recording additional quantities so there is enough evidence to be paid for them later.
TOOLS
Software he uses
- G8 — the estimating package he uses at work and in class.
- AutoCAD — reading and measuring quantities directly on the drawings.
- Excel — budgets, BOQs and payment tracking schedules.
EDUCATION
Education and expertise
A construction economics engineer who grew up in the trade on both the contractor and the client side.
- Construction economics degree — Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, 2013
- More than ten years in estimating and final accounts — through an M&E contractor, a resort developer, a telecoms group and a retail business
- Construction budget control — setting and tracking spending limits for infrastructure, civil and M&E works across many sites at once
- Instructor on the Institute’s estimating course — since 2023, online and on campus
Learn estimating from someone who has to check his own numbers
Finishing the estimate is not the end of the job — it still has to survive to the final account.