need estimating software advice

[benwieland]

ever since i started working for myself i have done all the take offs by hand. tranfered this info to a spread sheet on excel and pluged in my material unit prices and labored each unit price to come to an extension that i tranfered to another spreadsheet to total with what i call the bid summary. each time i do this i have to re-enter all the unit prices and the labor per unit. the spread sheet does nothing but add it up and i certainly cant store anything i need it to. with me starting to do larger jobs and really having to bid more work to keep all my wonderful guys busy i am going to need some sort of program that can take alot of these steps away so i can essentially quote more work without giving up anything else. it cant be too expensive and it neednt be very in depth because i am accustomed to doing it my way but lets say a program had all my mat prices and labor factors and when i entered a material quanity it would automatically labor it accordingly.

 

[George Stolz]

Re: need estimating software advice

What type of computer, OS, and spreadsheet program do you have?

I've done some pretty creative things for other ends on Windows 98, with Excel.

 

[hardworkingstiff]

Re: need estimating software advice

Excel is a very powerful program. I would suggest you take a quick course on excel. You might be amazed at what you can have it do. I do all my estimating in excel.

When I (back in the early 90's) was an installation manager for a pump and tank company I made a template in lotus 123 (pre excel) and with pricing and labor cost per unit of work performed. I could estimate a tank removal, new tank installation, canopy footings, lighting, tank replacement, new piping, electrical for the pumps all in about 10 - 15 minutes all because of the spreadsheet template. What is so nice about this is the estimate is written to work "your way".

Good luck.

 

[hardworkingstiff]

Re: need estimating software advice

In case you didn't know, you can have a spread sheet pull information from a different spread sheet. So if you had a master price list spread sheet, you could pull info from that for the estimate you are working on.

If you don't want to have an estimate change if you update your pricing spread sheet you can copy/paste it into your estimate workbook. The course will be worth it.

 

[George Stolz]

Re: need estimating software advice

Have you guys ever played with the "scripting" features in that VB Editor or whatever it's called? When I worked at the paper, we had to print skidtags for pallets of completed books, tabloids, etc. I set it up with that virtual code thing (it's been a while), so we'd just enter the quantity/address info, it would automatically calculate the number of pallets @ how many layers, etc. Hit one of the "buttons" on the face of the skidtag, and it would automatically duplicate the skidtag the correct number of times (i.e. 14 pallets by 2 or 4 sides) and print on one of the two printers I identified while I was scripting it.

 

[hardworkingstiff]

Re: need estimating software advice

Originally posted by georgestolz:


Computers are cool.

Oh yes! That company I was telling you about took my little spread sheet and got someone to take it to a much higher level. When they were finished, the salesman put the quantities of equipment on the spread sheet, the estimator did the install stuff, then clicked a macro button and the spread sheet hid all of the costs and proprietary information and presented a ready to print proposal with company logos. Very neat!

 

[George Stolz]

Re: need estimating software advice

That's exactly what I had in mind.

On the stuff I did, I used macro's to learn how to program it. Do something while it's recording a macro, then open that macro with the VB Editor and dissect it to see how it works. It took me a while, but I figured it out.

 

[benwieland]

Re: need estimating software advice

thanks you guys. i actually got the video professor and it filled the gap of what i was trying to do with excel and what i really needed it to do. i found out how to import info from price sheets for my ext rather than having to fill everthing in everytime from a hard copy. before i started my own company i was a pm for a large ec that had there own estimating system (which i later found out was a spin off of mcormick)and everthing you needed was just a click away and it got me spoiled and i thought estimating hard bid work was going to be a breeze until i found out the price of these systems. i then knew i had to do something different and it is finally becomming efficient. thanks