There are many advantages to having an Estimating solution. Simple spreadsheets with formulas are no longer beneficial to the industry standard. Here are 5 tips to WIN your Estimate using ProEstimate.NET.
1. Create templates for your Jobs
A great practice to ensure you don’t miss anything in your estimate is to start with a Master Project template. The Master Projects that you create should include all the Pay Items that may be found within your scope of work. For example, if you’re building an estimate around bridge work, you’ll want to include all of the Pay Items. This will allow you to prebuild your job with assigned crews and will prorate to the given quantities. Don’t forget to include items like the increasing insurance limits, bond costs, overhead, and markups
Once you have the Master Project built, you can easily create a Job from those foundational settings. Easily add or remove items as needed. This allows you the flexibility of customizing your estimate for each individual project. Equally important, it’s providing a full Pay Item list for the items you may forget otherwise.
2. Utilize Worksheets
Understanding the cost of how much Hauling material, Trenches and Bio Ponds, Blasting terrain, and Mobilizing your equipment can become tricky. All of the Worksheets within ProEstimate.NET have inputs and settings to capture the trenching depth, width, pipe run length, drill patterns, materials, cycle time, and a lot more to accurately calculate costs. Moreover, you no longer have to worry about your formulas in a spreadsheet not calculating correctly and a whole section of your bid be missing from the total.
3. Labor, Equipment, and Material cost
Creating your own labor, equipment, and material cost rate files for your databases will become the most profitable part of your bid. However, in order to turn a profit, you have to know what your labor, equipment, and material truly costs you. You’ll also need to know just how productive your crews are, which can be copied from Pay Item to Pay Item, making the estimating process quicker.
Labor costs are more than just the hourly wage attached to the work class. The Labor Rate database can house a multitude of rate files. You have the capability to set Base Rates, Insurance, Taxes, Travel, Cell Phone, and much more. In creating multiple rate files, you can easily pull in which rate file pertains to the Job once you’ve created your estimate from the Master Project. The Equipment databases works in the same fashion, allowing you to create multiple rate files and specify Ownership cost, Repair Labor, Fuel Type, Fuel Cost, Oil/Grease, and much more.
4. Historical Bid Tabulation Data
Have you ever been uncertain what prices are for a Pay Item? The industry, coupled with inflation, is moving forward at a rapid pace. Inflation is expected to continue through 2022. The “What If” portion within ProEstimate.NET uniquely gives you access to historical DOT tab data. You have the capability to load pay item data to better analyze what current prices are for the Job you’re bidding.
5. Reports
Our reporting section gives you over a million different combinations of reports. From a full overview of the entire job to a breakdown of each individual laborer. You will be able to dial in to each part of your project and know where your money is coming and where it is going.
In conclusion, these 5 tips to WIN your Estimate using ProEstimate.NET will bring you the advantage you’re needing to beat your competitors!
National Pavement Expo and Conference 2022
