Caprix AI user guide

Caprix is a browser-based workspace — there is nothing to install. It runs on any modern desktop or mobile browser, and your work syncs to your account automatically.

1.1 Creating an account

1. From the home page, choose Get Started Free.
2. Enter your email and a password (minimum 8 characters), or sign up with a supported provider.
3. Confirm your email if prompted, then you'll land on the Agents hub — the home screen where you pick which AI agent to open.

1.2 Signing in & out

Return to Caprix any time via the Sign In link. Once signed in, the home page button changes to Open App →, which takes you to the Agents hub. To sign out, open Account → sidebar footer → Sign Out.

1.3 Finding your way around

After you sign in, everything starts from the Agents hub. It lays out both families of AI agents on one screen so you can jump straight to the one you need:

• Agents hub — the home screen; choose a Cost Data Agent or a BOQ Agent. A Back to Agents button in each workspace returns you here.
• Chat — the workspace for the Cost Data Agents (AI Ask, AI Track, AI Estimate, AI Trends).
• BOQ Builder — the workspace for the BOQ Agents (AI Draft, AI Import, AI Review, AI Compare, AI Items).
• Account — profile, security, subscription, credits and this guide.

1.4 Light & dark mode

Caprix ships in dark mode. Toggle to light at any time using the theme button in the sidebar footer (the sun/moon icon). Your choice is remembered on your device.

Every action in Caprix runs on a simple credit system. Your balance and renewal date are always visible under Account → Credits.

2.1 What each action costs

Building and editing a BOQ — adding items, composing build-ups, applying markup, importing from Excel — costs nothing on its own. Credits are only spent when you run an AI action (draft, rate lookup, compare), import a PDF, or export a PDF.

2.2 The three plans

The Free plan includes AI Ask and the full BOQ Builder — build, save, AI-draft, import, review and compare on any plan (AI actions spend credits). Only AI Estimate, AI Trends and tender-ready PDF preview & export unlock on Pro and Max. Max adds a larger monthly allowance and the highest-priority response queue for busy teams.

2.3 How credits renew

• Free: your balance tops back up to 50 every month.
• Pro / Max: your allowance renews once a month, on your billing date.
• Corporate: credits renew monthly even though the company is billed annually — see Chapter 12.

2.4 What the Free plan covers

Credits control how much you can ask. The Free plan also scopes what you can ask about: it covers 8 categories in each price type and 5 locations. Everything else stays visible in the Ask filters and the BOQ rate picker, listed with a Pro badge, so you can always see what a paid plan adds.

Sabah and Sarawak hold several cities each, so on the Free plan you need to pick the covered city — the others are locked. Pro and Max open every category, every trade, every machinery type and all 14 states. The same limit applies wherever the price tables are reachable: AI Ask, the rate build-up and the BOQ rate lookup.

Caprix is a team of specialist AI agents, grouped into two families. Every agent shares the same live Malaysian cost data, so a rate you confirm with AI Ask is the same rate that prices an estimate, a build-up or a BOQ line. You choose an agent from the Agents hub — the home screen you land on after signing in. Here is the whole roster at a glance; each agent has its own chapter below.

3.1 Cost Data Agents · in the Chat workspace

Ask, estimate and track prices across Material, Labour and Machinery.

3.2 BOQ Agents · in the BOQ Builder

Build, price, check and export tender-ready Bills of Quantities.

AI Rate Build-up also lives in the BOQ Builder: it composes a defensible composite rate from material, labour and plant, and is included on every plan (see Chapter 8). Any build-up you are happy with can be saved to your own rate library and reused on later projects — that library is free on every plan, including Free.

AI Ask is the fastest way to get a Malaysian unit rate. Type a question in plain English and Caprix returns the right Material, Labour or Machinery figure for your state, year and month — grounded in real cost data, not guesswork. It's available on every plan, including Free — though the Free plan reaches part of the price dataset rather than all of it (see 2.4).

4.1 Asking a question

1. Open Chat and make sure the Ask mode pill is selected (it's the default).
2. Type your query, e.g. Unit rate for reinforced concrete grade 30 in Selangor, 2026?
3. Press Enter or the send button. Caprix returns matching rates, with a composite "per unit placed" figure where relevant.

4.2 Writing a good query

Ask understands natural language, but the more context you give, the sharper the answer. Include the material or work, the specification (grade, size, class), the state and the year:

• Rate for 100mm thick brickwork in cement mortar, Penang 2026
• Excavation in firm soil per m³ in Sabah, 2025
• Daywork rate for a general labourer in Johor

4.3 Narrowing the result

Use the Ask filters to pin down type (Material / Labour / Machinery), state, year and month so the figure matches your tender period exactly. You can also ask follow-up questions in the same thread — "now show me the same rate for Sarawak" — and Caprix keeps the context.

On the Free plan the filters still list every category and state, but the ones outside the free coverage are marked with a Pro badge — see 2.4 What the Free plan covers.

4.4 Chat history

Saved chat history is a Pro & Max feature. On those plans your conversations are saved to your account — reopen any past chat from the sidebar or start fresh with New chat, and your history follows you across devices. On the Free plan conversations aren't saved: each new chat starts clean and the sidebar shows an upgrade prompt instead of past chats.

AI Track turns the prices your budget depends on into a watchlist. Pin up to 10 items — a material, a labour trade or a machinery rate — and each one becomes a ticker card showing the current price, how much it moved in ringgit and percent, the range, and a six-period trendline. When a newer period of data is published, the card updates itself.

5.1 Building your watchlist

1. Open the Chat workspace and choose the Track mode pill.
2. Use Add item and search the price tables the same way you would in AI Ask — by material, trade, category and state.
3. Pick the rows you want and add them. They appear as cards on your Price Watchlist board.
4. Drag cards to reorder them so the items you check most sit at the top.

The board is yours alone, and it persists between sessions. From any other chat mode, a collapsed ticker strip runs above the conversation so you can see your watchlist without leaving what you were doing.

5.2 Reading a card

• Price — the latest published rate for that item.
• Change pill — the movement since the previous period, in percent.
• Trendline — the last six periods, so you can see whether a move is a blip or a direction.
• Period footer — which two periods the comparison is between, plus the movement in ringgit.

5.3 What it costs, and how updates are billed

AI Track is billed per item, not per board, and there are only two chargeable events:

There is no refresh button, and nothing is charged for simply looking at the board. The check runs when you open the Chat workspace: if none of your items has newer data — which is the case on almost every visit — it costs nothing. An item can only be charged once per period, however many times you open the page, and adding something already on your board is free.

5.4 Getting the most out of it

• Track the handful of items that actually swing your tender — reinforcement steel, ready-mix, cement, key trades — rather than filling all ten slots.
• Pin the same items you priced a live BOQ on, so you find out when the basis of that bill has moved.
• Pause seasonal or one-off items between projects instead of removing them; the card keeps its history for when you resume.
• Use AI Trends for the why — the watchlist tells you a rate moved, Trends explains the market behind it.

Describe a building and Caprix produces a full elemental cost breakdown — from substructure to preliminaries — rebased to your target year, ready for you to refine. It's the fastest way to put a defensible order-of-cost figure on a project at concept stage.

6.1 Generating an estimate

1. In Chat, select the Estimate mode pill.
2. Fill in the brief: building type, location/state, gross floor area (e.g. 2000 m²) and the pricing year.
3. Submit. Caprix returns an elemental breakdown — substructure, superstructure, finishes, services, external works and preliminaries — that you can read, copy and use as the basis for a BOQ.

6.2 Reading the breakdown

Each element shows its share of the total so you can spot where the cost concentrates. Use it to test a budget, compare two building options, or sense-check a figure before you commit to a detailed bill.

6.3 Any state in Malaysia

Every building type can be estimated for all 14 states. Where Caprix holds completed-project benchmarks for the state you picked, those are used directly. Where it doesn’t, the estimate is built from comparable projects in other states and each figure is adjusted twice — forward or back in time to your pricing year, and across to your state using a regional cost index (Central / KL is the 1.00 base).

You are always told which happened. When the figures have been adjusted from elsewhere, the estimate carries a 📍 note naming the states the data came from, so you know to treat the location basis as approximate. No note means the benchmark was already for your state.

Each estimate costs 5 credits. Estimate is unlocked on Pro and Max.

AI Trends reads real Malaysian tender-price and material cost indices so your budgets and tenders stay a step ahead of the market — by state, category and period.

7.1 Running a Trends analysis

1. In Chat, select the Trends mode pill.
2. Choose the trend type, the state, and the from / to year range you want to analyse.
3. Submit to see where prices have moved over the period and where they're heading next.

7.2 Putting trends to work

• Time procurement — buy ahead of a rising index, or hold where prices are softening.
• Justify a contingency — back your allowance with movement in the real data.
• Explain to a client — show, in plain terms, why a budget needs to move.

Each analysis costs 5 credits and is available on Pro and Max.

7.3 AI Track — keep an eye on the rates that matter

Where Trends answers a question once, AI Track keeps watching. Pin up to 10 items from the price database and each one gets a ticker card: the current price, the change in value and percentage against the previous period, the period the figure belongs to, and a six-period trendline. Open Chat and select the Track pill to build your board.

• Materials move monthly; Labour and Machinery are published twice a year (January and July), so their cards compare against the previous half-year.
• Labour shows a min–max band; the change is calculated on the midpoint.
• Your tracked items also appear as a compact ticker strip above the conversation in the other agents.

AI Rate Build-up assembles material, labour and plant into one defensible composite unit rate, with each component priced from live rates. It's how you turn a handful of inputs into a single, auditable figure you can stand behind in a tender.

8.1 Composing a build-up

1. Inside a BOQ item, open the build-up editor.
2. Add a row for each component — e.g. Concrete G30 · 1.05 m³, Mason & labourer · 0.8 hr, Poker vibrator · 0.2 hr.
3. Use rate lookup on each row to drop in the live figure, then set the quantity or coverage.
4. Caprix totals the components into a composite rate (e.g. RM 391 / m³); apply it back to the item.

Rate Build-up is part of the BOQ Builder and is included on every plan — there's no separate per-build-up credit charge.

8.2 Your Rate Library

A build-up you have worked out once shouldn’t have to be worked out again. The Rate Library is your own store of saved build-ups, reusable across every project. Open it from the Rate Library button in the toolbar, or from any item’s menu.

• Save — from an item’s menu choose Save to library, then give the rate a name, category, sub-category, unit and an optional remark. Or click New rate build-up in the library and compose one from scratch.
• Browse — the library opens as two panes: your saved rates on the left, grouped by category, with the full build-up editor on the right. Search by name, category, unit or remark.
• Reuse — pick a rate and apply it to the item you came from, or add it straight into the active bill as a new row. The components come with it, so the figure stays auditable.
• Edit — open a saved rate to change its components and look up fresh live rates, then save the changes back.

A BOQ rate that came from the library carries a small book badge in the rate cell — click it to jump straight back to the saved build-up behind it.

8.3 The Company Library · Corporate accounts

A company account has two libraries in one panel: My Library, private to you, and the Company Library — your organisation’s shared rate book. Both sit in the same list, and the tabs at the top (All · Mine · Company) narrow it down when you want to focus on one. Company rates carry a teal Company badge and show who last edited them.

• Publish — press the share button on one of your own rates to move it into the Company Library, or pick the destination up front when you save a new build-up. Everything you can see in the Company Library, everyone on the team can see too.
• Everyone can edit — a company rate belongs to the organisation, not to the person who added it. Any team member can open one and correct it in place, and the change is attributed (“last edited by…”) so the history is never anonymous.
• Keep your own version — if you want a variant without changing what the team relies on, press Copy to My Library. The copy is private to you.
• Moving and deleting are tighter than editing — only the rate’s author, or an org owner/admin, can pull a rate back out of the Company Library or delete it. One person can’t quietly remove the team’s standard rates.
• When someone leaves — their company rates stay with the organisation (ownership passes to the org owner). Only their private rates leave with them.

The BOQ Builder takes you from a brief to a tender-ready Bill of Quantities — structured to SMM2 (SMM3 coming soon), priced against live rates, marked up, and exported as a clean, optionally password-protected PDF. It's home to the BOQ Agents — AI Draft, AI Import, AI Review, AI Compare and AI Items — which draft, import, check and assemble your bills; AI Draft is the agent that writes the bill for you.

9.1 Projects & bills

• Create a project with New Project; give it a name and client.
• A project holds multiple bills (e.g. Bill No. 2 · Substructure). Use Add Bill to add more, and the bill navigator to move between them.
• Duplicate or delete projects and bills from their menus — handy for versioning a tender or reusing a template.
• On a company account the project list splits into your projects and Team projects, and each of your projects gets a share button — share it with the whole organization, or only with the teammates you pick (see Chapter 12 · Corporate Accounts).

9.2 AI Drafting a bill

Short on time? Use AI Draft: describe the works — e.g. "Single-storey 2,000 m² warehouse with reinforced concrete frame in Johor, basic finishes" — and Caprix drafts a full structured set of measured items, each line priced against live rates, which you can then refine. Drafting a full BOQ costs 20 credits; drafting the items for a single bill / section costs 5 credits.

9.3 Adding & editing items

Within a bill, use Add Item to insert a row, then set its description, quantity, unit and rate. Supported item types cover a full bill:

• Measured — standard quantity × rate items.
• Sum — lump-sum allowances.
• PC (Prime Cost) — prime cost sums.
• Provisional — provisional sums for undefined work.
• Contingency — contingency allowances.

Duplicate, delete or reorder items as you build. Toggle priced / unpriced views to check coverage at a glance.

9.4 Rate lookup & build-ups

• Rate lookup — search the live Material/Labour/Machinery data from inside a row and drop the figure straight into the rate. On the Free plan the picker lists every category and state but only 8 categories per price type and 5 locations are selectable; the rest carry a Pro badge (see 2.4).
• Build-ups — compose a composite rate from components (see Chapter 8 · AI Rate Build-up), then apply the calculated rate back to the item.
• Rate Library — save a build-up you want to keep, and pull it back into any later project from the toolbar or the item menu (see Chapter 8.2).

9.5 Units, custom columns & markup

• Units — pick from the unit menu (m², m³, nr, tonne, etc.).
• Custom columns — add your own columns (e.g. Wastage %), reorder or remove them, and reset to default when needed.
• Formulas — custom columns accept expressions, e.g. (r1*q1 + r2*q2) * 1.1.
• Markup — apply a per-bill markup percentage; totals carry to the summary automatically.

9.6 AI Import — Excel & PDF

Already have a bill? Use AI Import to kick-start a project from an existing document instead of typing everything in — then price and refine it inside Caprix.

• Excel — import from a spreadsheet. Caprix reads it in your browser and maps the columns (with multi-sheet allocation for workbooks that hold several bills). Excel import is free.
• PDF — hand Caprix a PDF bill and AI reads the selected pages, structures the items, and drops them into your project. PDF import is billed 1 credit per 5 pages (minimum 1), charged on the page range you select.

9.7 AI Review — one check before you issue

Click AI Review in the bottom action bar for a single, deeper pass over the whole BoQ. It combines the instant rule-based checks (missing units, empty bills, duplicate descriptions) with an AI review that flags missing trades, unit mismatches and suspicious quantities or rates — all in one two-pane panel: findings on the left, the detail and a suggested fix on the right. It costs 5 credits per run.

• Go to row jumps straight to the flagged item; the panel stays open beside your bill so you can fix and keep reviewing.
• Your results stay available — close the panel and reopen it any time with the same button, at no extra charge.
• Once you edit the BoQ the review is marked out of date; run it again (another 5 credits) for a fresh pass.

9.8 Issuing & tracking changes (Addenda / VOs)

Once a BoQ is ready to go out for tender or be signed as a contract, open Addenda in the bottom action bar and click Issue for Tender / Contract. This locks in the current version as the official one — item numbers stop shifting, so if something is later removed, its number is simply skipped instead of renumbering everything after it.

You can keep editing after issuing. Caprix won't overwrite the original — instead, each round of changes is recorded as its own numbered Addendum (before the contract is signed) or Variation Order (after), with a reason and a printable PDF. The Addenda panel keeps a running register of every one issued, plus the BoQ's current amended total, and lets you void a change set issued by mistake.

9.9 Page setup & PDF export · Pro & Max

1. Open Export to reach page-setup options: portrait / landscape, alignment, continuous vs. one-bill-per-page layout, and page numbering (e.g. Page {n} / {t}).
2. Optionally set a password to produce an encrypted, confidential PDF.
3. Save your export settings and run the export to download a polished, tender-ready document.

AI Compare puts two or more priced projects side by side and explains the gap, line by line, in plain language — against benchmark rates and earlier versions — so you know exactly where you sit above or below the market.

10.1 Running a comparison

1. In the BOQ Builder, open Compare.
2. Pick the projects (or versions) you want to put side by side.
3. Add a prompt to focus the analysis, e.g. "explain where the warehouse is cheaper than the factory".
4. Run it. Caprix highlights the differences element by element and explains why — not just the numbers.

10.2 Like-for-like across time and place

Two projects are rarely priced in the same year or built in the same state, so Compare puts them on a common footing before it draws a conclusion. It time-adjusts figures with the tender price index and shifts them across states with the regional cost index — a market benchmark from Selangor is rebased onto Sabah’s cost basis rather than compared raw. The analysis tells you which adjustments it applied, so you can see whether a gap is real or just geography and timing.

10.3 When to use it

• Benchmarking — check a new bill against a known-good one before tender.
• Version control — see what changed between two revisions of the same project.
• Value engineering — find the elements driving a price gap and target them.

A comparison starts at 10 credits — that covers two projects, plus 5 credits for each additional project — and is available on every plan (you'll need at least two saved projects).

Everything about your account lives here, in the tabs along the left.

11.1 Profile

Update your full name and email. Changing your email triggers a verification link before it takes effect.

11.2 Security

Set a new password (minimum 8 characters; mix letters and numbers). Enter it twice and choose Update Password.

11.3 Billing

See your current plan, status, start and renewal dates, and how long is left on the period. From here you can change plan, and cancel or reactivate a subscription. Paid plans also get a Billing History table, where every payment can be downloaded as a PDF receipt.

11.4 Credits & Usage

Check your available balance, lifetime usage, per-action costs and how your credits renew, along with a history of what each action spent. Upgrade directly from this tab.

11.5 Danger Zone

A Corporate account puts a whole estimating team under one company account. Every member gets the company’s plan without their own subscription or card, and the company gets a single invoice and a single renewal date. Corporate accounts are arranged with us directly rather than bought online — talk to us and we will set the account up for you.

12.1 How credits work on a company account

Every company chooses one of two models when the account is set up:

Whichever model you are on, billing is annual but credits renew every month. You do not have to wait a year for a refill, and unused credits do not roll over from month to month.

12.2 The Organization tab

Open Account → Organization to see your company account: its plan, status, renewal date, how many seats are in use, and everyone on the team. What you can do there depends on your role:

• Members see the company details and the team roster, read-only.
• Owners and admins can invite someone by email, change a member’s role, and remove members. On a per-seat account they also see each member’s remaining balance.

Inviting someone reserves a seat straight away, so the seat meter reflects invitations that have not been accepted yet. When the invited person signs up with that email, they are linked to the company automatically and inherit the plan — there is nothing for them to activate.

12.3 Billing, credits and your own account

• Your Billing tab shows the company name, a Corporate badge and the date the plan runs until, in place of the usual payment and cancellation controls.
• Your Credits & Usage tab shows the shared pool, or your seat allowance, along with the monthly renewal date.
• Everything else works exactly as it does on a personal plan — the same agents, the same per-action credit costs.

12.4 Sharing projects — and choosing who with

Nothing is shared by default: every project you build is private to you until you say otherwise. In the BOQ Builder, click the share icon beside one of your projects and pick who gets in:

• Everyone in the organization — any active member can open it.
• Only the people I choose — tick the teammates who should have it. Nobody else in the company can see the project, not even other admins.

Whoever you let in can open, edit, price, review and issue the bill — you stay the owner, and the project shows up under Team projects in their sidebar. Change the list or click Stop sharing at any time; access ends the moment you do. Saved rate build-ups are shared separately, through the Company Library — see Chapter 8.3.

12.5 When someone leaves the team

When an owner or admin removes a member from Account → Organization, that person reverts to their own account immediately:

• They go back to the Free plan — unless they hold their own paid subscription, which takes over again.
• Their credit balance resets to that plan’s allowance straight away; the seat allowance does not go with them.
• They lose access to every team project and shared rate, including anything shared with them by name.
• Projects they had put in the team workspace stay with the company — ownership passes to the account owner, so the work does not walk out with the person. Their private projects remain theirs.

The same reset applies to the whole team if a company account is ever suspended or lapses: everyone falls back to their own plan until it is reactivated, at which point the seats are restored.

13.1 A typical end-to-end workflow

1. Ask a rate to anchor your numbers.
2. Generate an estimate from the brief for an elemental view.
3. Draft the BOQ with AI, then refine items and price against live rates.
4. Build up composite rates where you need a defensible figure — and save the good ones to your Rate Library for the next job.
5. Compare against a benchmark or earlier version to pressure-test the price.
6. Export & share a clean, optionally password-protected PDF for tender or client.

13.2 Handy shortcuts

• Enter sends a chat message.
• Switch Cost Data Agents with the Ask / Track / Estimate / Trends mode pills without losing your thread.
• Back to Agents in any workspace returns you to the Agents hub to pick another agent.
• The theme toggle and Sign Out live in the sidebar footer on every account page.

13.3 Getting the best answers

• Always include a state and a year so figures match your tender period.
• State the specification (grade, class, thickness) — vague queries get vague rates.
• Cross-check anything surprising with a second, tighter query before you rely on it.

13.4 Frequently asked

How many AI agents are there? Nine, in two families — the Cost Data Agents (AI Ask, AI Track, AI Estimate, AI Trends) and the BOQ Agents (AI Draft, AI Import, AI Review, AI Compare, AI Items), plus AI Rate Build-up inside the BOQ Builder. Pick any of them from the Agents hub.

Do I need a credit card to start? No — the Free plan needs none.

Which agents are free? AI Ask and the whole BOQ Builder — including AI Draft, Rate Build-up, AI Import, AI Review, AI Items and AI Compare — are on every plan (AI actions spend credits). Only AI Estimate, AI Trends and tender-ready PDF preview & export need Pro or Max. The Free plan also covers part of the price dataset rather than all of it — see 2.4.

What happens when I run out of credits? Wait for your next reset/renewal, or upgrade for a larger allowance.

Is my chat history saved? On Pro & Max, yes — across devices. On the Free plan, chats aren't saved; upgrade to keep your history.

Which standards does the BOQ Builder follow? SMM2, with multiple bills per project. SMM3 support is in development.

Can I reuse a rate I built up once? Yes — save it to your Rate Library and pull it into any later project. The library is free on every plan, and on a company account you get a second, shared Company Library in the same panel that the whole team can use and edit (see Chapter 8.3).

Can I estimate for any state? Yes — all 14 states, for every building type. (AI Estimate is a Pro & Max agent; the Free plan's 5-location limit applies to the price tables, not to Estimate.) If Caprix has no benchmark for that state it adjusts comparable projects using a regional cost index and tells you it has done so (see Chapter 6).

Can my colleagues see my projects? Only if you share them, and only on a company account. You choose the whole organization or specific teammates each time — see Chapter 12 · Corporate Accounts.

Can I protect a confidential tender? Yes — set a password on export for an encrypted PDF.

Where does the data come from? Real Malaysian Material, Labour and Machinery rates — the same source data behind every AI answer.

Need help? Use the Contact link in the site footer.