Electrical estimating software for small businesses

[kortelectric]

Do you recommend using estimating software and will it save time? I do mostly medium size (1200 -5000 sq. Ft.) single family dwellings and small commercial on occasion. How does it work?

 

[ChandlerBing]

Estimating Software

Estimating Software

Now the company I do work and estimate for is rather large, and does work that varies in size. We use Accubid Enterprise and it is an amazing software as long as you do the work up front to build your assemblies, and for us that was about 8-10 months. Assemblies are things like a duplex receptacle and we went in include all the parts and pieces required to install one, and we did this for everything we work on. Now for the size of your work I don't think it will take nearly as long. I have read other posts on here about this software and they just used the assemblies that came with it which is an option as well.

There is other software out there, but this is the only one I have used.

 

[Christoph]

I use Red Rhino. It is $99 a month and comes with assemblies and labor units all built in. Prices are updated monthly and the support is unparalleled. You can literally call their national trainer John Kelsey and the guy will be on the phone with you until you get it. I knew nothing a short while ago and I am pretty confident now in no small parts thanks to them. Just youtube Red Rhino and have a look. I am not paid to say this....

It is browser based and takes some getting used to as far as how to input things but as I looked around and tried other programs I immediately went back to Red Rhino as everything else had either no assemblies built in or was just horrible user interface.

Free 30 day trial too!

Like I said, not being paid to say this ... but John if you read this, you got my number ...

 

[kortelectric]

Interesting.

 

[oldsparky52]

I just used Excel and built templates that fit my work.

 

[oldsparky52]

I use Red Rhino. It is $99 a month and comes with assemblies and labor units all built in. Prices are updated monthly and the support is unparalleled. You can literally call their national trainer John Kelsey and the guy will be on the phone with you until you get it. I knew nothing a short while ago and I am pretty confident now in no small parts thanks to them. Just youtube Red Rhino and have a look. I am not paid to say this....

It is browser based and takes some getting used to as far as how to input things but as I looked around and tried other programs I immediately went back to Red Rhino as everything else had either no assemblies built in or was just horrible user interface.

Free 30 day trial too!

Like I said, not being paid to say this ... but John if you read this, you got my number ...

Do you find there assemblies to be accurate? Are you able to work to there labor units? This sounds pretty nice if it is accurate.

 

[Coppersmith]

Mike Holt has a nice discussion of estimating software with recommended products here: https://www.mikeholt.com/EstimatingSoftware.php

 

[Besoeker3]

FWIW, I produced our own spreadsheets in Excel. Just three basic versions. Projects, service, and spares. If/when we got the job, these were issued to my buyer.

I tried to make them easy to use. The front sheet summarised the detailed data from the other sheets and came up with a total project price. Some of the projects were fairly large/complex so there were often updates but I kept the revisions with the same job number but with updated revision numbers.

 

[Christoph]

Do you find there assemblies to be accurate? Are you able to work to there labor units? This sounds pretty nice if it is accurate.

I have not actually won a job. But the deal with labor units is that you have to work with them and adjust them. Mike says himself his labor units are way lower than the NECA manual. There is no short cut to this as everyone works differently too and the adjustments to them are infinite (job conditions, etc)

But at least it is all there and makes a lot of sense.

Red Rhino has taught me a lot of estimating so far as they also have videos on every page explaining what is going on.

And try getting a 30.day trial somewhere with estimating software. They try to give you a live demo and then sell you a year. Red rhino is month to month.

Can't lose as far as I am concerned.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[kortelectric]

I am sure that using excel will be what I use. Not wanting to have a monthly payment , not being regularly familiar with word processors. I was hoping to save time, have more time for doing the electrical work, which is by far more fun than getting bogged down in screen time. Also getting people rolling on the job as well. Thank you for the wealth of info.

 

[ptonsparky]

Back when I personally did houses, a spreadsheet worked very well. Mine got pretty detailed down to the expected # of wire connectors and staples.

 

[oldsparky52]

When I first started doing gas stations (as a qualifier for a pump and tank company's electrical license) I would spend hours estimating the electrical portion of our project. My boss (who was a civil engineer and in charge of the installation department that included the electrical department, me) would look at the job for 4 minutes, then write down a number. He would usually be less than 5% off from my estimate. I remember one time I spend probably 10 hours on a somewhat complicated project and he came up with less than 1% difference. I asked him why I was bother to spend this time estimating when he could produce a number in minutes.

Granted, in that scenario, the big money was in digging and backfilling the tank hole, pouring concrete, etc., not the electrical.

 

[oldsparky52]

Back when I personally did houses, a spreadsheet worked very well. Mine got pretty detailed down to the expected # of wire connectors and staples.

Excel is a wonderful program. I do miss the Lotus 123 not needing to type "=" when entering a formula.

I once stumbled across a function in Excel that allowed me to pick all of the same awg cables in a column (that had multiple cable sizes) and multiply them by the adjacent column that had the distance to get the total footage needed for that size cable. That was sweet. I had no Excel training, just fumbled with it.

In the early 90's I was an installation manager for that pump and tank company I worked for and I created a spreadsheet that I could go into and enter concrete/asphalt removal distances, excavation sizes, footers and sizes, trenching sizes and distances, piping, etc. Then it banged out a recommended labor hours required. It was a work in progress and I think it was fairly accurate. I left it for my replacement when I quit (to go in business for myself) and he said he loved it.

 

[Gary11734]

Do you recommend using estimating software and will it save time? I do mostly medium size (1200 -5000 sq. Ft.) single family dwellings and small commercial on occasion. How does it work?

If you're going to stay in business, get a good estimating program that you will use and grow with it. My first purchase in business was Mike Holt's estimating program. At 3,000.00 I had no jobs, or where to find them. It was one of the best decisions I made. I used Mikes for 8 years and then Accubid the rest. (Switched from DOS to Windows).

Don't wait until you got used to using free software and spreadsheets. It takes time to figure out your own labor units, and the assemblies you want to build and use on how you see a project. I looked at Accounting the same way. It paid big dividends after I started getting bigger. Trying to fix Estimating and Accounting after you grow and in the middle of a growth spurt is not where you want to be. JMHO...

 

[Christoph]

If you're going to stay in business, get a good estimating program that you will use and grow with it. My first purchase in business was Mike Holt's estimating program. At 3,000.00 I had no jobs, or where to find them. It was one of the best decisions I made. I used Mikes for 8 years and then Accubid the rest. (Switched from DOS to Windows).

Don't wait until you got used to using free software and spreadsheets. It takes time to figure out your own labor units, and the assemblies you want to build and use on how you see a project. I looked at Accounting the same way. It paid big dividends after I started getting bigger. Trying to fix Estimating and Accounting after you grow and in the middle of a growth spurt is not where you want to be. JMHO...

Well said, eat the 99 bucks now and get in the groove ... and just like Mike Holt says: YOU NEED TO PLAN FOR SUCCESS !! Expect to grow if you put in the right effort and have your infrastructure in place

 

[sw_ross]

If you're going to stay in business, get a good estimating program that you will use and grow with it. My first purchase in business was Mike Holt's estimating program. At 3,000.00 I had no jobs, or where to find them. It was one of the best decisions I made. I used Mikes for 8 years...

Are you referring to Turbobid? If not, I wasn't aware that MH had an estimating software.

 

[Christoph]

talking sbout MS DOS it was probably in the early 90s. I myself was in diapers in the early 90s lol

 

[Gary11734]

If you're going to stay in business, get a good estimating program that you will use and grow with it. My first purchase in business was Mike Holt's estimating program. At 3,000.00 I had no jobs, or where to find them. It was one of the best decisions I made. I used Mikes for 8 years...

Are you referring to Turbobid? If not, I wasn't aware that MH had an estimating software.

Mike started out with his own estimating program written for DOS. Then he tried to go windows but it never worked out. I looked around and picked Accubid in 1994. It was one of the last programs I used in DOS.