Best Bid Software

A

AKElectrician

Senior Member
Location
Soldotna, AK, USA
I bought Best Bid Software 3 months ago and have been playing with it as much as I can, I imported several different old drawings and have been "bidding them".

Does anyone on here use it and is good with it? This is the first bidding software I have used, and I'm not the best on a computer in general.

I am importing missing items and building some common residential assemblies, has anyone taken the Item list and reworked it completely in excel? Saw on the video tutorials its possible.

So far I like it, I really like that its a buy once software and its all in one so you don't have to have go get Pro-core or Plan-swift to see the plans for takeoff.

I am sure there is a better program/combo out there, I just started with the one that seemed less finicky with updates and subscriptions.
 
Best Bid is one of the best electrical estimating software programs that you can purchase. I will address your question first. Best Bid has a Residential Template to use to make it simple to estimate Residential work. They have YouTube videos that show you how to estimate Residential work. Better than that just call the company and tell them what you do not understand and they will help you until you do. Best support ever!

I looked up the YouTube video:
The phone number is: 800-941-7028

It does seem all electrical estimating software is heavier on Commercial and Industrial, but Best Bid can adapt to any electrical project with its unlimited database. Call them. They will put you on the right track.
 
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Does it include Take off software with it?
How many assemblies do you have to create or are there so many options you just need to find yours?
How’s the material priced?
Good for a Mac?
How hard is it to make up an assembly and man hours for a small job?

I’ve looked at a couple and bought Best Bid cause it was a single price for the estimating and takeoff software and no subscription fees.
I am not opposed to paying more but I don’t see how they could be any different really, you got to learn them and build assemblies no matter what from what I can tell.
And I think most use net pricer which is what Best Bid uses, so no real difference there.
 
The IntelliBid is the takeoff software. It comes with thousands of prebuilt assembled catered toward residential, commercial, and industrial. You can add items if you don’t find them in the database, make your own assembles of you need to. It’s an exceptional software. We have tried a few but this seems to be the best we have seen.
Also you can create templates for your overhead and profit along with any other item you want to add to your bid without giving much thought at the end after doing your takeoff and pricing.
As far as pricing goes it also uses net pricer to connect to any of your suppliers as long as they have a means to update their pricing at regular intervals, otherwise it’s uselss. We have one that updates every two weeks and one that does once a month. Of course we just about always price wore these days with how much it’s moving around. Your commodities stay fairly stable and can be saved in the database which has been very helpful for those quick small bids, also saving your suppliers time of doing those little ones.

If you’re looking at using PDF drawings for your takeoff that is a different software called SureCount, made by the same people as IntelliBid. I personally feel that if your only looking to buy one and not knowing what your current bid software looks like with that or what it costs, I would use a Bluebeam for doing your counts and distances then manually enter into IntelkiBid using the thousands of assembles.

We use a server based in our headquarters, but use a web based version in one of our offices out of state. I have to believe that may be the best option of your using a MacBook.

Best of luck to you!

Link below

ConEst Site
 
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