How to Set Up and Run Your E&O Renewal Report
in BaseBuilders
The E&O renewal report in BaseBuilders is the product of a one-time setup and an annual report run. Once the Select field is created, the underwriter's category list is loaded, and projects are tagged at intake, the renewal report is a date range selection and an export — summarizing gross billings, subconsultant costs, and net professional fees by category for any reporting period. Here's everything that needs to happen once, and everything that happens automatically every year after that.
The Before and After of E&O Renewal
Before BaseBuilders is configured for E&O reporting, renewal looks like this: the office manager opens the project list two or three weeks before the renewal deadline. She starts working through it — pulling invoices, cross-referencing the accounting system, trying to remember which projects belong in which of the underwriter's categories, calculating the subconsultant cost splits by hand. It takes two or three days. The numbers feel approximately right, but not verifiable. If the underwriter asks a follow-up question about the methodology, the honest answer is that the numbers were reconstructed from available records and best judgment.
After BaseBuilders is configured for E&O reporting, renewal looks like this: the office manager opens the renewal report in BaseBuilders, selects the date range for the reporting period, and runs the export. The report summarizes gross billings, subconsultant costs, and net professional fees by E&O Category for the period. They then run it twice more for the prior two years. They hand the three exports to the broker. The entire process takes under an hour.
The difference is not the quality of the underlying data — both approaches draw on the same project and billing records. The difference is whether that data was organized at intake, as a natural part of how projects are managed, or assembled at renewal from scattered sources under time pressure.
The setup that produces the second scenario requires three things: a custom Select field on the project record, the underwriter's specific category list loaded into that field, and project managers tagging new projects at intake. None of those three things is technically complex. Together, they eliminate the annual reconstruction exercise permanently.
→ Read: E&O Insurance Renewal for A/E Firms: The Complete Guide
The difference between a two-day renewal reconstruction and a one-hour report run is not the quality of the underlying data.
It is whether that data was organized at project intake or assembled at renewal from scattered sources. The setup that produces the one-hour outcome requires an afternoon of work — once.
What's Automatic — No Setup Required
Before any E&O-specific configuration is done, BaseBuilders already maintains the data that drives the most important columns in the renewal report.
Gross billings by project
Every invoice issued to a client in BaseBuilders is recorded against the project it was issued for. The billing date, the invoice amount, and the project are all captured automatically as part of the standard billing workflow. No additional data entry is required for gross billings — they exist as a consequence of how the firm manages its billing cycle.
When the E&O renewal report runs for a specific date range, the gross billing total for each project is the sum of all invoices issued for that project within the reporting period. For a project that was billed across multiple periods, only the billings within the selected date range are included, which is exactly the period-level accuracy that underwriters want when they ask for billings rather than contracted fees.
Subconsultant costs by project
BaseBuilders tracks subconsultant costs as a distinct cost type in the normal course of project management. When a subconsultant pay request is recorded, and a payout is processed, the amount is attributed to the project it belongs to. The subconsultant cost total for each project is the sum of all subconsultant payouts recorded against that project.
This data exists because the firm is managing its subconsultant relationships — tracking pay requests, processing payouts, monitoring accrued liability. The E&O renewal report draws on that existing subconsultant cost data to populate the Subs column automatically, without requiring any separate reconciliation between billing records and accounts payable.
Net professional fees
Net professional fees — gross billings minus subconsultant costs — are calculated automatically for each project and each category. There is no manual calculation. The report produces the net figure as the arithmetic result of the two figures that are already tracked.
Net Billings, Net Fees, and Net Income
BaseBuilders supports all three net measures in the renewal report output. Net Billings reflects invoiced amounts during the period. Net Fees reflects contracted fee amounts. Net Income reflects collected amounts. The user selects which measure to report when running the export — based on what the underwriter asks for. All three options are available without additional configuration.
Gross billings, subconsultant costs, and net professional fees are all automatic outputs of data BaseBuilders already tracks for billing management and subconsultant oversight.
The renewal report draws on this existing data — no separate data entry, no reconciliation exercise, no reconstruction from scattered sources.
The One-Time Setup
Three configuration steps convert the automatic project and billing data into a renewal report summarized by the underwriter's specific categories. Each step is done once. None of them need to be repeated unless the carrier's category list changes.
Step 1: Create the E&O Category Select field
In BaseBuilders, navigate to the project settings and add a new custom field. Select the field type as Select — a dropdown list — and name it "E&O Category" or a similar label that will be recognizable to project managers at intake.
The field appears on the project record alongside other project setup fields — phase structure, fee allocation, project type, and client name. Its presence in the project setup workflow is what prompts the categorization decision at intake rather than at renewal.
Step 2: Load the underwriter's category list
With the Select field created, load it with the specific categories from the carrier's renewal application. Each category in the carrier's list becomes one option in the Select field.
Include every category from the renewal application — including those the firm does not currently use. A category that consistently shows zero in the renewal report is informative to the underwriter. A blank category raises questions.
If the firm has documented edge-case rules — how mixed-use projects are allocated, how occupied renovation is categorized, and how the firm handles projects that span category boundaries — those rules should be written down and attached to or referenced from the project setup workflow. The rules do not need to be elaborate; they need to be applied consistently by whoever tags projects at intake.
Step 3: Tag existing projects
For projects already active in BaseBuilders when the field is created, a retroactive tagging pass assigns the appropriate E&O Category to each project. This pass covers the projects that will appear in the current and prior two years' renewal applications — the reporting periods the underwriter typically requests.
The retroactive pass is most efficiently handled by the office manager or a principal, working through the project list and applying the category from the underwriter's list based on each project's type. For most firms with an active project portfolio, this takes a few hours. For a firm with a large historical backlog, a longer pass may be needed — but the backlog beyond the three-year renewal window is not needed for the current application and can be done in stages.
Once the retroactive pass is complete, the historical data is in place. From that point forward, new projects are tagged at intake by the project manager opening the project — thirty seconds per project, done once at project setup, never revisited at renewal.
The one-time setup has three steps: create the Select field, load the underwriter's category list, tag existing projects.
After that, the only ongoing action is tagging new projects at intake — thirty seconds per project, done by the project manager who knows the work best, at the moment when the categorization is most accurate.
Running the Annual Renewal Report
With the setup complete, the annual renewal report is a straightforward three-step process that takes minutes rather than days.
Step 1: Select the reporting period date range
Open the E&O renewal report in BaseBuilders and enter the date range for the underwriter's current reporting period — typically the twelve months ending on the policy anniversary date or the calendar year, depending on how the carrier structures the application.
The date range is the only filter applied to the report. Every project with billing activity during that period is included in the summary. The gross billings column reflects all invoices issued during the period. The subconsultant costs column reflects all subconsultant payouts during the period. Projects with no activity during the period do not appear.
Step 2: Review and export
The report summarizes by E&O Category — showing gross billings, subconsultant costs, and net professional fees for each category within the reporting period. Review the summary for any obvious anomalies — a category that appears unexpectedly high or low, a project that seems to be in the wrong category, a subconsultant cost figure that doesn't seem right.
If something looks off, drill into the underlying project detail to identify the source. The most common causes of unexpected figures are projects tagged to the wrong category at intake — which are easy to correct — or subconsultant costs recorded against the wrong project. Both are addressable before the export goes to the broker.
Select the net measure to report — Net Billings, Net Fees, or Net Income — based on what the underwriter asks for. Export the report to CSV or Excel.
Step 3: Run for prior periods and hand off to the broker
Repeat the export for each of the prior reporting periods the underwriter requests — typically the two prior years. The same report, the same category structure, the same column format, for each prior period.
Organize the three exports into the renewal application format — either as separate tabs in a single spreadsheet or as the direct input to the underwriter's application form — and hand off to the broker.
The broker now has what they need. For firms shopping competitively, the same package goes to every broker simultaneously. Each broker submits to their carrier relationships. The firm receives competitive quotes without doing the underlying data work more than once.
When the carrier's category list changes
Carriers occasionally update their classification structures — adding categories, combining others, or reorganizing the taxonomy. When this happens, the E&O Category Select field in BaseBuilders should be updated to match the new list.
For historical projects that were tagged under the old list, a remapping pass may be needed to align prior-period data with the new categories. For most category changes, this is a minor adjustment — a category that was split into two, or two categories that were combined into one. The project manager or office manager can work through the affected projects and update the tags in a single session.
Once the field is updated, new projects are tagged against the new list going forward. The next renewal cycle draws on the updated categorization.
The year-over-year efficiency gain
The first year of running the E&O renewal report in BaseBuilders produces a meaningful time savings over the manual reconstruction approach. Every subsequent year is more efficient — because the historical data is already tagged, the report format is already established, and the broker already knows how the data is organized.
What was a two-to-three-day exercise in year one becomes a one-hour process in year two and a thirty-minute process by year three. The setup was a one-time investment. The efficiency compounds every renewal cycle.
→ Read: What Your E&O Underwriter Actually Asks For at Renewal
→ Read: R&D Tax Credit for A/E Firms
→ Read: A/E Accounting for Architecture and Engineering Firms
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