Estimating Solutions - the Solution for Contractors
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The transition from a written estimate to that compiled on a computer is a large one. Whatever estimating system you use, you will have a period of learning and adjusting to trusting what you have entered from the keyboard is stored away inside that "box". In order to produce consistent Bids, you must evolve a simple system of estimating and we hope to be able to help you do just that with our system. Firstly, look at the demonstration estimate and see how we have broken the estimate into small easily understood sections. Look at our demonstration Master database to see how we have grouped similar items in sections making them easier to locate. You can make your own Master database from items you normally use in the course of your particular business by following the layout of our Database. In order to become proficient, compile a bid your normal way, then do the same bid using this system. Once you are confident, then you will see how much time and effort you will save with this system. This system has been designed by a contract estimator. It attempts to emulate the way estimators compile an estimate using handwritten sheets. It has been purposely kept simple to operate as we believe an estimate should take the minimum possible time to compile and the purpose of an estimate is to produce an accurate cost of the project in order to win an order. Once you have won the project, you will have plenty of time to organise, fine tune and go shopping for better prices, so why have a system which produces meaningless reports based upon your initial concepts of the job. As estimators, our philosophy is to produce a tender at the lowest possible price that our company can carry out the project and make a profit which is acceptable to us. Once we have the order to carry out the work, we then re-evaluate our estimate in order to save both time and money.
In order to win a Bid and still make a profit, you must initially have a good, experienced estimator. So if you have the good fortune to employ this person, why waste their valuable skills scribbling on pricing sheets, searching price catalogues and tapping away on a calculator. This system is simple to operate and allows you to produce a Bid in a similar way to hand written pricing sheets, but is only as good as the estimator using it. We cannot guarantee that by using this software, you will win more work, but we can guarantee that with careful planning and laying out your estimate in a logical way, you will have a Bid in which you will have a greater knowledge of your costs, expenses and profit. By taking the drudgery out of producing hand written pricing sheets and the inevitable mistakes with the calculator and the guess work in establishing labour install rates, you will soon be producing more consistent bids. You will then be able to better evaluate the market and fine tune your rates to get you amongst the winners. Producing a bid with this system should take less time. Time which can be more productively spent either on more bids or seeking better prices for your materials. It is assumed that you are conversant with the Microsoft Windows operating system as this software is configured to run under Microsoft Windows, and as a result, all operations are controlled by the mouse. Nothing happens unless you make it happen by selecting a task from the menus or buttons and clicking the mouse on it. As with most Windows based systems, the faster your computer and the more RAM (Random Access Memory) you have, the faster things will happen. We would not recommend using this system on a computer of less that a Pentium 4 and a video resolution of at least 800x600. The estimate files are configured to a Database system. The advantage of using a database is that all additions, deletions and edits are written to the hard disk immediately. Therefore in the event of a power failure or crash, no information is lost. The disadvantage of using a database is lack of speed as the system is constantly reading and writing to the disk. This should not cause you a problem if you keep your Master Database sections and Estimate sections to a reasonable length. The Master database can be placed on a server and networked to individual PC's. The speed of transfer of data will, however be slowed down due to the speed of the network. The estimate program will not function on a server and has to be loaded on each estimating PC. Top Menu functions can be clicked, revealing drop down menus which in turn can be clicked to select the task you want to perform. Various buttons can be clicked to carry out other tasks. The mouse can also be dragged across rows of items on the database display to highlight them for deletion or a single field can be double clicked to edit it. Whole rows or single cells can be cut, copied and pasted via Windows Clipboard. The system is displayed on various screens, each screen displaying a task function. External databases can be imported into the Master Database. Therefore Suppliers price lists can be quickly installed into your own Database.
LOADING THE ESTIMATING SOFTWARE The software is downloaded from the Internet as 1 compressed .exe file. This is a self extracting file. Select to save the file to your computer and remember where you have saved it. Double click the file or run the file estimatesetup.exe and it will automatically start the set up routine. If you get an error message during loading that some files already exist in your computer, then simply click the "ignore" button and the set-up will proceed as normal. If you are running Windows Vista, you may get some warnings that existing files are newer than those being copied. click the button to keep the existing newer files. All files will be loaded into a directory or folder on your hard disc. Unless you change this, the default folder will be C:\Program Files\Estimating Solutions. Click the Windows START button and you will see that a new program has been installed. Right click the program icon (Eaprof2008) and left click Send to Desktop (create shortcut) and a shortcut will be placed on your desktop. Click this shortcut to run the program. Later on you may want to set up a special directory to contain your Estimate files (with the ending .MDB) and another directory for your database files (with the ending .DAT). With the software is a demonstration Master Database called Demo.Dat. This contains a comprehensive list of commonly used materials as used by an Electrical Contractor. We cannot supply a Master Database to suit every trade and profession and suggest that you look at the demonstration one to get some ideas on layout so that you can build your own. Should you decide to use Demo.dat then change it's name as it will be overwritten should you re-load the Set-up disk. The free trial version will run for a number of times in order for you to test out the system. Once you have purchased the software, you will receive a registration code which will unlock the software .
When the software loads, the first screen you will see contains a top menu bar. By selecting a task with the mouse pointer and left clicking, you can go to that task. The following will briefly explain what you can do in each task;
The Master database contains all the items (Price, Install hours, tax, discount etc) you would normally need in order to produce an estimate. It can be thought of as a huge catalogue of prices. Every person's needs are different. We all pay different prices for our materials and take different times to install them, so you will tailor the Master database to suit you own particular requirements. Do not fall into the trap of using another contractor's price and install times as you may not be able to achieve them yourself. A demonstration Master database (Demo.Dat) is supplied to give you some idea how to set out and construct your own. On clicking Master Database menu item you may select to work on an existing Master database or create a new one. Once you have made your selection, you will be able to do perform various tasks on that Master database, as explained later. On clicking this item you may select to work on an existing estimate or create a new one. Once you have made your selection, you will be able to do perform various tasks on that estimate, as explained later. On clicking this item you may select to work on an existing assembly or create a new one. Once you have made your selection, you will be able to do perform various tasks on that assembly, as explained later. For the newcomers to Computerized estimating, an assembly is a pre determined collection of items which go to make up an item in your estimate. For instance, a 'door' item in an estimate would require a 'door' plus the hinges, plus the handle, plus the lock, plus some screws etc. All these items can be put into an assembly and when you require a 'door' in your estimate, you simply call the assembly which inserts all of these pre determined items into your estimate. If you now expand on this idea to your own particular business, you will, no doubt, be able to think of hundreds of Assemblies which will help speed up your estimating. TRASER for WINDOWS Database (Australian Users) Trade Service of Australia produce a very comprehensive list of materials and equipment associated with the Electrical Contracting Industry. They are fully priced and twice monthly you will receive an update disk containing any price changes, new items and discontinued items. For an annual subscription to Trade Service of Australia, you can gain access to this database and use this to build your own personal Master Database, or select items directly from your estimate. Periodically, you will receive update disks which will update all Traser prices and add new items etc. You will therefore be constantly up to date with new materials and equipment and prices. This section of the software enables you to perform all the above mentioned tasks. The drop-down menu on this item will allow you to delete old estimates from your hard disk, repair corrupt files and to compact a file which will save space on your hard disk. You can select help and get the file you are reading now on screen.
GENERAL The Master Database is the heart of a good Estimating system. Just like a good library of suppliers catalogues and price lists, a Master Database needs to be in some form of order and indexed, so that you can quickly find the item you require. Therefore, when you build up your own Master Database, give plenty of thought into setting up of sections, the number of items you place in a section and also leaving space for future items. In order to assist you in this, we will explain below how the Database identifies and sorts. Section Headings which appear in the drop down list box at the top of the screen are sorted by the Numerical value of the text string. If the heading was sorted by the text value or alphabetically, for example "Cable Ladder" would be placed above "Lighting Fittings", which may not be what you want. We have therefore arranged to control this by sorting on the numerical value of the text. For example "1.....Lighting Fittings" would appear above "2.....Cable Ladder" as the system will sort on the numbers seen on the left hand side of the text string and ignore any subsequent text. Text on its own will be evaluated as zero. It is imperative that your Section Headings start with a unique number the smaller any list is, the easier it is to locate an item. Therefore only keep in your database the items you regularly use in your type of work and you will be able to locate them in the shortest possible time. You may want to make other Master databases of specific types of items. Rows are displayed in the order that they were entered into the Master database. You are able to move items about using the cut & paste method. Therefore, a new item which will appear at the bottom of the page can be pasted into the middle of the page. When a new section is set up, a dummy row is established. It can be seen from the above, that you may enter an unlimited number of items per section. However, it is recommended that you attempt to keep your sections reasonably short to enable speedy location of an item. MASTER DATABASE By clicking "Master Database" on the 1st. screen loaded, the Master Database Screen is displayed. The first time you run the system, you will be prompted to load the Master Database file. A demonstration Master Database is provided called "Demo. Dat". Once loaded, the system remembers where it is and automatically loads it. The drop down list box at the top of the screen displays the Master Database Sections. Initially the display reads " No Section Selected". Click on the down arrow to reveal the sections list. Click on the section required and the contents of that section will be displayed on the screen. Items in each field can be edited by clicking the mouse on them and typing in the correction. the changed field will be saved as soon as you move to another field.
By clicking the mouse on the top menu bar selections, various tasks can be performed; Set up New Section..... Enables you to set up another section in your Master Database. Ensure that the section description begins with a number which enables the system to display your sections in the order of our choice. New Item....... Enables you to set up a new item within the selected section of the Master Database. Print............... Enables you to print out the Master Database to a printer selected in the Windows Print Manager. Exit................. Returns to the previous screen.
EDIT. Click on the "Edit" menu to access the following tasks;
Edit Section Heading ..... This enables you to modify the Heading of the section selected. Ensure that the new section heading begins with a number. (Remember that the sections are sorted by the numeric value of the heading and that changing this numeric value will effectively re-position the section in the display list. Delete Section ..... This will delete all the items within the section selected and remove the section heading from the list box. TRASER (Professional Edition Only) If you have the TRASER Database installed, and licensed your estimating software to access TRASER, then you may be able to paste items from TRASER into your Master Database and also, later on update prices from TRASER. Once the item is in your Master Database, you may edit it and add to it any trade discount and labour install rate you wish. Any changes you make to the item in your Master Database will not change the original item in the TRASER Database. Whenever you do a price update in TRASER, any item you have copied from that database into your own Master database can also be updated. CHANGE PRICES BY % You may have the need to update all of the material prices or labour install rates in your Master Database section. This can be achieved by clicking on "Change Prices by %". At the prompt, type in the revised % increase or decrease (a decrease requires a minus sign preceding the number) and all the items within that section will be updated by the % amount. Or you can double click on an individual item and edit it.
IMPORTING DATA FROM OTHER PRICE LISTSYou may have other estimating software and want to convert your Master database or Price list to work on this system or you may receive material price lists from suppliers on CD Rom or disk. You can convert them to work on this system. Our research has shown that there is no set standard or format for the data supplied by other suppliers and in order for it to be compatible with our databases which are Microsoft Access (.mdb) files, there needs to be some conversion and formatting done. Ie the data must be in a certain order to be acceptable to our database format. For instance, the data must be in the order of Manufacturer, Catalogue Number, Description, Unit, Price, Labour Hrs, Tax%. Microsoft Excel will convert data of most forms into a spreadsheet. Once this has been achieved, our system can import the data. A sample spreadsheet (Book1.xls) is provided in our software package as an example of how your spreadsheet must look prior to importing. When you are ready to convert your data, load Excel and the example spreadsheet (Book1.xls). Import your data from your suppliers price list or other estimate software price list into Excel and arrange the data in the correct column order of the example spreadsheet. This can be done by cutting and pasting. If you do not have, say Manufacturer or Catalogue number in your suppliers price list, simply leave the field blank. However, the columns in the spreadsheet must have these fields whether you use them or not. Once you have the data in this format, load our software and select the Master database section where you want the data to be imported. Select the menu item ‘Import' and the data will be automatically imported into your selected section. When more than 4 blank rows of data has been imported, our system will assume that you have reached the end of the Excel list and will prompt you to end the data transfer. Therefore, if you purposely have left blank rows in the Excel spreadsheet, remember this otherwise you may not receive all the data. Once your data has been imported, you can then add your install time, discount etc.
GENERAL It is useful to sectionalize your estimate so as to keep it in small manageable sections and to enable you later on to get a print out of section totals. As a guide, some clients request a price break up, so it would be a good idea to create your sections in accordance with the requested break up. Otherwise create your sections in the logical way you would do the material "take off". Estimate sections are sorted alphabetically, so if you want your sections to appear in a logical order, put a letter first i.e.. "a....Consumer Mains" & "b.... Submains" etc. WORKING ON THE ESTIMATE When the "Work on Estimate" Screen is displayed, you can click the mouse on the top menu bar to carry out various tasks; Adding items to the Estimate At the lower part of the screen are displayed "Buttons" Select items from Master Database Click on the button marked "Master Database" and you will be transferred to your Master Materials and Labour Database where you may locate and select an item of material by clicking the mouse on the required row and then clicking the "Transfer to Estimate" Button at the top of the screen or simply double clicking the mouse on the required row. The selected item will be copied into your estimate section. The material cost price will be copied less the discount% and sales tax (if any) will be copied as a monetary sum. By clicking the mouse in the "Quantity" field in your estimate, you can enter the desired quantity. In fact, by clicking the mouse in any field, you are able to edit any item to suit the particular needs of the project. Any changes made to the item in your estimate do not effect the original item in the Master Database. Select items from TRASER Database (Australian Users) Click the button marked "TRASER" and you will be able to select any item from the Trade Service Database, subject to you having installed it. This item will be copied unprocessed i.e.. no discount will have been applied and no labour rate will exist so you will need to insert them or make any adjustments with the double clicking method. Refer to the TRASER section for details about configuring and running TRASER. Insert Assemblies Click on the button marked "Insert Assembly" and you will be able to select and copy to your estimate any assembly which you have previously compiled in the spare time you now have by using this system. Refer to the Assembly section for details on how to set up Assemblies. Insert comment line Click on the button marked "Insert Comment". This has numerous functions. By just clicking "OK" in the pop up edit box, a blank line will be inserted into the estimate, which can be used to separate rows and make your estimate more readable. This blank line could be edited by double clicking each field to produce a special item not available from your Master Database. A comment or note can be entered in the pop up edit box in order to clarify or document your estimate.
Cut, Paste and insert lines Forgotten items can be added into the estimate by using the cut and paste from the Windows clipboard method. To either cut or copy a complete row, click the mouse on the leftmost column (TAG) and the row will be highlighted. Right click the mouse and a drop down menu box will appear. Make your selection i.e. cut, copy, insert blank line or delete. Click the mouse on the row you want the item to be pasted and click paste. Multiple rows can be pasted by clicking on one row, then holding down the CTRL Key and clicking another row. Two rows are now selected. Whole blocks of rows can be selected by holding down the SHIFT Key and clicking the mouse on another row. The row (s) must be highlighted in order for them to be selected. Single cells can be similarly cut and pasted by clicking on the cell and then right clicking the mouse to reveal another drop down menu.
Search Master Database by Description We went to the trouble of sectionalizing our Master Database in order that you could find an item quickly. However, you may not remember which section that item resides in, so press the Search Mdb button at the top of the screen and enter the item description or just part of the description. All items matching that description will be displayed. Search Previous Estimates You will make a lot of Special items which you may not consider worth putting into the Master Database and in a future estimate, need the item again. Select the Search Estimates button and you can then select any previous estimate in which to gather your data. You can highlight more that one item by clicking and dragging the mouse. Using this method, you can copy whole sections of previous estimates into your new estimate. Estimate Net Cost Summary Again, click on the "File" menu and then click "Estimate Summary". All your estimate sections will be summarized showing the net cost materials and total productive labour hours and a total net cost materials and total productive labour hours for the project to date. Like most estimators, you are under pressure and can forget to enter a quantity to an item. Do not worry, the system will spot any item within your estimate that has either a labour or material field with a cost in it but no quantity, and remind you of your omission.
A number of reports are available as listed below; Total Similar items This selection will require some explanation. The suppliers always seem to wait until the bid period is almost up before giving them to you resulting in extreme panic and mistakes trying to process them before the bid closes. Simply use the list price from your Master Database or leave the price blank on a special item. When the prices are to hand click the "Report" menu and then click "Total Similar Items". The system will search the estimate sections and collect together all similar items and show the total quantity of each item. The criteria for this search is the description field of the item must match exactly. The clever part is that you are able to click on either the material cost or the labour install rate for any item on this screen and change it's value. The system will then locate every matching item in the estimate and automatically update the material cost price and similarly for labour rate fields. Therefore, when your late prices arrive there will be no more panic. Simply enter them in via this screen and all your estimate will be updated. Be wary when changing the labour rate for an item. In the estimate, you may have modified a labour rate to suit a particular situation and this routine will change the labour rate of ALL the similar items. You may not want this to happen. A double click on the item description will display all matching items informing you of their location within the estimate. Other facilities on this screen which require no further explanation include being able to print out either selected estimate sections or the total estimate, save the estimate file under another name, edit section headings, delete rows and delete whole sections. INCOMPLETE ITEMS Another facility in the Report menu is the ability to display any row which may not be complete. The criteria to display a row is as follows;
This may be OK but it could be possible that you have forgotten to enter a value, so a quick look through these items will prevent you from winning a bid by missing out a large cost item only to discover your error halfway through the project when you have run out of money. A double click on the description cell will take you immediately to it's section. Total cost by Material Type By selecting this item from the reports menu, you will have displayed the total material cost of each item grouped by Master database section. This can give you some idea of the cost amount for each material category so that you may be prompted to go back to your supplier for a larger quantity discount.
Click on the " File" menu and then click on "Estimate Front Sheet". If you are using the Lite version then a simple front sheet will be displayed allowing you to enter a margin on materials and a charge out rate for your labour hours. If you have the Professional version then in addition, an advanced front sheet will be available, enabling you to add to your estimate all the other costs which are required to carry out the project, such as Supervision, Non Productive hours, Travel, Plant & Equipment, Vehicles, Overhead Recovery and not forgetting some profit. It is sometimes useful to know the total cost of similar groups of items, for instance, if you knew the total cost of all the cable in the project, then you may decide to go back to the supplier for a further discount on quantity. The system will sort the materials in your estimate and group them according where they came from in the Master Database. Another sort routine is available...Sort by Description... When you look in the Master database or estimates, you will see a field labeled "Sort Description". This field has a default description "Materials". You can change this to a sort category such as "Cables" and all items with this category description will be totaled on the front sheet. You will therefore have a total for all the materials sorted either by Master database section or the Sort Description field. Below this will be displayed a total for labour install hours collected from the estimate sheets. This is only productive hours you allowed in the estimate and is not totaled into the front sheet yet. You should use this figure as a guide when you insert the actual hours you require. For instance you may want to allow for some additional supervision hours, non productive hours etc. To assist you, a drop down list box is provided (access via the top menu bar marked "Labour Costs". you can pre-set-up your labour categories and select them from this box. Insert the number of hours allocated to this labour category and it will be these hours which are accounted for in the front sheet. The other costs required to carry out the project can be selected from drop down boxes (which you can set up yourself). These boxes may be selected from the drop down menu under "Plant & Equipment", "Travel Costs" and "Misc. Expenses". These expense items can be categorised to be totaled as material or labour items. A field is displayed on the front sheet called "Category". The default category is labour (LAB) but you can change this to material {MAT} or Hours (HRS). Changing this Category field does not effect the totals. It only effects how the margin percentages are displayed. In addition, if you select HRS for an item, it will be classified as labor but totaled to the bottom of the front sheet as "Hours Allowed". This gives you how many labor hours you have allowed in the bid. Eventually, you will have your front sheet completed with all the cost items required to complete the project. By double clicking on the net cost and margin grids, you may enter costs and margins. The lower part of the front sheet gives you additional information such as total cost, total tender sum, average margin and average cost of labour per productive hour. This latter item may require some explanation. The average cost of labour per productive hour is compiled by dividing everything that isn't classified in the Category column as Material (MAT) by the total productive hours i.e. the total hours from your estimate sheets. Bid price Break-up Click on "File" and "Bid Break-up". This screen will display the total Bid sum broken down into the estimate sections. This is why it makes good sense to sectionalize your estimate and to think carefully about the way you sectionalize your estimate before starting the estimate. Certain Clients may require to have a break - up of the bid sum to assist them in their castings for the project and will give you details of how the bid sum is to be broken up in the bid documents. It would therefore make good sense to set up your estimate sections in this fashion. The bid sum break - up displayed consists of the net material cost of each estimate section plus ( the productive labour hours x average labour cost per productive hour) plus the average margin. Warning... This is only one way of compiling a section break - up and should only be taken as a guide to assist you in compiling your own break- up. It certainly shouldn't be used if the client wants this cost break - up to delete any section from the Contract Sum.
GENERAL The word Assembly was chosen as this seems to be generally accepted in the Computerised estimating world as the term for a group of items which will always be required to make up the finished product. For instance, a light switch on a wall can comprise the following items; i The light switch assembly ii A wall box iii Chasing the brickwork iv Conduit from the wall box to the ceiling space v Cabling from the switch to the nearest light fitting All of these items can be collected together in an assembly and titled "1 gang light switch" When you are carrying out the take off and encounter similar light switches, you simply locate the assembly, and copy the required quantity through to the estimate. If you apply your thoughts to assemblies, you would be amazed at the number of assemblies you can set up and remember, whenever you use an assembly, you are saving valuable time in searching for each individual item. This time could be better spent in thinking of alternative ways to save cost and win the bid. The assembly method is virtually identical to the estimate method so refer to Section 2 above for operating instructions.
Sometimes, we are requested to supply schedule rates to supply and install a particular item or a group of items. An easy way to achieve this is to build up the item as a small estimate section. Click the menu item "Schedule Rates" and select "For this Section". A drop down display will show the assembly and give you the facility to apply a Percentage margin to the material content and a cost to the install hours content. Selecting the menu item "For all Sections" will give you the totals for all the Estimate Sections. You could therefore make a special file for all the schedule rates required for a particular project or client. We have also supplied this same facility in the Assembly section to allow you to produce a schedule rate from an Assembly.
TRASER DATABASE (Australian Users Only) GENERAL Trade Service of Australia produce a very comprehensive list of materials and equipment associated with the Electrical Contracting Industry. They are fully priced and every 2 weeks you will receive an update disk containing any price changes, new items and discontinued items. For an annual subscription to Trade Services of Australia, you can gain access to this database and use this to build your own personal Master Database which will be updated with the update disks. You will therefore be constantly up to date with new materials and equipment and prices. The Database is extremely large and contains may thousands of items in its complete state. The database has excellent sorting and categorizing methods resulting in the speedy access to your selected item. The Database will contain lots of items and suppliers that you will never require and TRASER can be configured to display only the items you wish to see. Trade Service of Australia can be contacted at; 12 Parkview Street Milton Queensland 4064 Phone (07)3369 8699 Email sales@tradesvc.com.au ACCESSING TRASER FROM THE ESTIMATE You can paste any item from TRASER into either your Master database, Estimate or Assembly. When you have an estimate section displayed on screen, you will see a button marked "TRASER". By clicking this button with the mouse, TRASER will load and be displayed on your screen. You will notice that a new button will have appeared in TRASER marked "ESOL". Select your item in TRASER by clicking the mouse and highlighting the line. Keep your finger on the mouse button and drag the item to the "ESOL" button. Release the mouse key and the selected item will appear in your Estimate section. Similarly, select further items. When you have finished selecting, click the "ESOL" button to be returned to your estimate section. All the items pasted through will need to have quantities and labour install rates inserted and you may want to modify the price to reflect your trading discounts. Any changes you make in the estimate will not effect the original item in TRASER. Now you have lots of spare time..... You could build up your own Master database from TRASER items and pre-insert discounts and install rates. When you update TRASER prices, you can also update your estimate , Assembly or Master database prices from TRASER. Only items selected from TRASER will (of Course) be updated. Goods and Services Tax or Value added Tax is addressed by simply adding the statutory Tax percentage to the selling price of the Bid. The value of this percentage can be pre-selected from the Utilities Menu. Input tax on materials and services in the estimate are ignored as they play no part in the compilation of the Bid. Input tax will be addressed by your normal accounting procedure when you win the project and actually purchase these items. You can set the value of the tax to zero from the utilities menu.
Most estimators are neat by nature and would prefer their estimates to follow a certain format. We all sometimes miss things out and would like to slot them in within the estimate in a logical position. This can be done in numerous ways by cutting or copying to Windows Clipboard and similarly pasting the data in the desired position. A single cell can be selected by left clicking it. A right click will bring up a menu box where you can make your selection. By left clicking and dragging the mouse, groups of cells can be selected. This is useful for pasting selected data into another application such as Microsoft Excel or Word. Whole rows can be selected by left clicking on the left-most column. Groups of rows can be selected by clicking on the left-most column, Holding down the CTRL or SHIFT Key and clicking the leftmost column of another row. Once copied, the items will be placed on the Windows Clipboard which means that they are available for pasting into other programs such as Microsoft EXCEL or Microsoft WORD. For instance, you can copy a selected group from the 'Total Similar Items' and paste this into a Fax to your supplier requesting prices. You could also copy the Bid total breakdown into your Bid letter.
You may be unlucky enough to have the system crash on you. Some known reasons for crashes are power failures causing the database file to be corrupted. You may find the system crashes when you try to load a particular section or when you attempt to get an estimate summary or bid front sheet. To try to fix up the problem go to the first screen display (with the Estimating Solutions Logo) and select the Utility Menu. Then select "Repair Database" and click the estimate file that is causing you the problem. This may fix the corrupted section. If all else fails, then email the problem file to us and we will fix it and return it to you. Remember to backup your files regularly, especially your master database and assembly files. The loss of these could be the loss of Months of hard work. The software may not be compatible with some network systems, especially those which run Visual Basic Software, and is not guaranteed to function on all network systems. Remember, your license is for a singe user only, and if you plan to network the system, then you must purchase a multiple user license. If the system crashes and you get an error message then you may have discovered a bug which has eluded us. Make sure that the crash occurs more than once (in case it was a Windows system crash ) and then please email us with the error message, and what you were doing at the time and we will fix it and send you an update. We may require a copy of the estimate file which caused the crash if we cannot simulate it ourselves.
We hope you find the software useful and once you get to find you way around it, you will be producing more accurate and consistent bids in much shorter time. There is no guarantee that by using this software, you will win more work, as being able to have the lowest bid and still make profit requires the skill and judgment of an expert estimator. What we do guarantee, however, is that this software will enable you to produce bids more quickly by taking the drudgery out of the take off, leaving you more time to locate more competitive prices and to give more consideration to your final bid price. Whilst every effort has been made to "road test" the software, it may still contain some bugs. Should you have any problems, please contact Estimating Solutions Pty Ltd with details of what you were doing when you encountered the problem and we shall fix it. If you would like the software to carry out other functions which would assist you in the preparation of your bid, then please Email us with your request and, if possible we will incorporate your ideas and send you an update. We also confirm that whilst the maths have been checked for accuracy, we do suggest that you initially check your results with the estimating methods you used to use. We cannot be held responsible for any errors and of course, Estimating Solutions Pty Ltd can accept no liability for any mistakes made from the use of this software. Good Luck and may you win many profitable contracts with the help of this software
Warranty Estimating Solutions grants no other warranties, express or implied, by statute or otherwise, regarding the software and related materials, their fitness for any purpose, their quality, their merchantability or otherwise. The liability of Estimating Solutions under the warranty set forth above shall be limited to the amount paid by the customer for the product to Estimating Solutions In no event shall Estimating Solutions be liable for any special, consequential or other damages for breach of warranty.
Copyright Copyright © 1997 - 2008 Estimating Solutions . All Rights Reserved. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement. The software may be freely distributed. However, it is against the law to distribute your software license number. The license agreement expressly permits the license holder to use the software on only one computer at any one time. Additional licenses must be purchased for multi-use. It is against the law to operate the software after the free trial period has expired unless you have purchased a license. Microsoft, MS, Windows and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
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