Schedule of values: the breakdown the whole contract runs on

Every scope in the contract, priced, adding up to the total contract value. The schedule of values is the backbone of progress billing, change orders and cost tracking.

Before the first invoice goes out and usually before work starts, the general contractor produces one document that quietly governs the money for the rest of the job: the schedule of values. As Procore's explainer puts it, the SOV is a comprehensive breakdown of the tasks or scopes of a project with their respective costs, and those individual amounts sum to the total contract value. It is the fundamental tool for progress billing and change orders, and the reference for tracking completed work against planned work.

Why the breakdown matters more than the total

A lump-sum contract says what the owner will pay. The SOV says how that money is distributed across the work — and that distribution decides everything downstream: how much each progress payment can claim, how a change order plugs into the existing numbers, how overbilling and underbilling show up. A well-built SOV makes each billing cycle a matter of updating percentages against agreed line items. A badly built one turns every pay application into a negotiation.

How it gets built

• Scopes, not departments: line items follow the work the owner can see and verify — mobilization, foundations, structure, envelope, finishes — so progress can be measured against them.
• Quantities times unit prices: the estimating team prices each line from quantities, market rates and supplier and subcontractor quotes, as Procore describes the process.
• Front-loading discipline: early scopes carry real costs (mobilization, bonds, submittals), but inflated early values get caught in review and poison trust for the rest of the job.
• Room for change: the SOV is the base that change orders attach to; every approved change becomes a line with its own value and progress.

From billing tool to control tool

Once the job runs, the SOV becomes the scoreboard: percent complete per line, billed to date, balance to finish. Paired with progress certificates, it answers the two questions that keep a contractor solvent — how much of the contract is earned, and how much of the earned money is collected. When that breakdown lives in the same system as the certificates, the changes and the collections, the answer is always current. That is the operation an ERP for construction companies runs for a contractor, implemented around the way each company works.