Easy Price Pro Estimating Software

The inputting part doesnt bother me because I have to find out the prices anyway - what I like the look of is that it remembers everything for you - when OH has priced extensions before he usually forgets something ! also I might be able to price the smaller jobs to save him time..

Its the £2K price tag that is worrying me though!

nutmegman wrote: »

This kind of activity is best done through excel as true estimating is down the knowledge and skill the individual has in putting together the estimate.

You have to understand the specification and work out the quantities, all this software will do is prompt you for the information and build up the estimate it wont do the job for you so i dont think £2k is worth it.

What i would do is build your self some templates in excel and work it up that way, you can enter man hours against a work breakdown structure, this will enable you to see if you have enough labour hours in the job per each task.

Then have another column for materials at cost price, then total up your hours and apply OH&P to them and for your materials if appropriate.

And dont forget to do a risk profile for each estimate with costs to cover, I assume you are doing lump sum prices

If you need anything else on estimating please ask.............

I have just bought Excel 2007 VBA for Dummies, so am looking into that option as well.

To give you some background, my husband is a joiner, he has the expertise to price, but not the time - we are currently having to turn away enquiries because we dont have the time to price for them. Doing the work is not a problem because OH oversees and we sub-contract to other joiners, builders, plumbers, electricians etc..

We are looking at a way of pricing quicker - i.e. I do it - I currently do all the accounting for the business and have simple spreadsheets set up to do basic pricing. From what I have seen of the programme, I should be able to do most if not all of the pricing through the system.

I can probably write a simple version of what we would buy, however I do not have the expertise on exactly what is required and would need help from OH setting up the system - this defeats the object of reducing OH time - it is a bit catch 22!

Any tips that you have to reduce OH time would be much appreciated!

(The reasons for the £2K price tag I think is because we do so much and need to buy 3 parts to the system - we do small joinery jobs as well as extensions and loft conversions etc. - I also like the Health and Safety part which we need to brush up on because we are taking on permanent employees now)

nutmegman wrote: »

a good way forward may be get the OH to complete a bill of quantities for the materials, then you can price it....that should take care of the materials.

Then i would produce a work breakdown structure for common tasks like

1, first fix electrical
2, second fix electrical
3, fit windows
4. skirting boards

Then get the OH to confirm the quantity (so this can be cross checked with the material schedule) the OH can put man hours next to each task.

This way he can just give you the data without getting bogged down in working out the final quote....

HTH

The thing is we are talking a bit deeper than that- for instance a two storey extension - would have to work out depth of foundations, amount of bricks and blocks required, roof sizes and angles - amount of roof tile - plus all the other bits and pieces that have to be remembered - thats the sort of thing that takes hours to work out.