Swiss cost classification
The Swiss cost classification orders the costs of a building according to a uniform system – divided into cost groups and trades. It creates a common language between client, planner and contractor and forms the basis for budget, tender and settlement.
Relation to scheduling
Tasks can be assigned to cost groups and trades. Costs and dates then remain addressable through the same terms, and the plan stays compatible for everyone involved.
Sequence order and cost order are not the same
One conclusion suggests itself – and is regularly rejected in practice: that the schedule could simply be structured by cost group. Training expressly asks for the opposite in the master programme: a chronological depiction of the construction sequence, arranged by subject areas such as client milestones, foundations and earthworks, structure, fit-out, facade and external works.
The reason lies in the question each order answers. The cost classification orders by who invoices what; designed for comparability across projects, it is deliberately timeless. The schedule orders by what follows what. Two items in the same cost group can lie months apart, while two tasks in the same week may come from entirely different groups.
They are therefore two orders of the same project, existing side by side – neither converts into the other. A bar chart sorted by cost group reads like a budget and no longer shows the sequence.
In Menira the cost classification can be imported once and then reused in a structured way in every project – as an assignment for tasks, while the order in the plan follows the construction sequence.