Request for Proposal from prospective owner includes asking us to quantify our "average annual volume of work in place over the last three years."  What is that? Probably not "revenue" or "backlog" or they would have asked for that instead.  Anybody know the definition of "volume of work in place"?

Thank you,

Paul Oliver

For us "volume of work" includes not only the revenue we recognize on the project, as others have commented on, but more importantly, it includes any other cost that we may directly or indirectly manage.  If the owner is holding any contracts or making any material purchases (tax exempt entities) we included that in "volume".  This applies especially when your a "pure" Construction Manager when the owner has all the subcontracts.

We always consider the request for volume of work as simply another way of asking for our revenue.

For us the volume of work in place would in fact be revenue recognized for the given period of time. If accounting for long term contracts and using costs incurred as the indicator of % complete, the amount of revenue recognized represents the volume of work in place. Depending on your contract and the how you get to bill for that work, billings may or may not be indicative of the work in place. For example we often get to bill ahead under a mobilization item so the amount billed exceeds the amount of work in place. During the course of the contract, that catches up, but on average, for us, the amount of revenue recognized does approximate volume of work in place. Over a three year period, our contract revenue would equal work in place.

Hope that helps.