Hey aren’t there a few folks here who have used those online web based estimating sites. I seem to recall a few people commenting on them at one time but my search for old posts on it are giving more results than I want to read through so I thought I ask the question.
I think Craftsman has one (Nation Estimator) and I think HomeTech does too? Anyone? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
The question I have is how do they go about reflecting your actual real labor costs? How do they know how much you’re spending on your troops for benefits and variable overhead like truck and tool allowances?
What’s your experience with them?
Are there any others I don’t know about?
Replies
I've got a link to http://www.costestimator.com on my personal browser bar. Liked it well enough to buy the full brogram. Thge online version doesn't have as many toys and options but the main reason I bought full is that it is faster than waiting for the uplink with each addition or modification I made.
Excellence is its own reward!
Hmmn Piffin huh,... I should have figured. So you bought the real deal huh? Well let me ask you how does the real program deal with adjusting COSTS to reflect what your real labor costs.
Ya know in the printed manuals they give you a number for let's say installing a Prehung solid-core door without saying telling you how that number was derived. The regional adjustments and modifiers aside how does it adjust to reflect the one particular contractor in AnyTown, AnyState USA is paying his carpenters 20 bucks per hour while down the street that contractor is paying his 25 per hour plus benefits?
I'm a Macintosh office so the last time I looked at, got to try out and play around with HomeTech on a Windows box was at least three years ago and I know they made improvements in the latest version but I still wondering how that gets handled?
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JH,
You can see in this screenshot that there are edit modifiers for the amount of time to hang the door, the cost of materials and the rate of labour cost to influence the cost outcome. Then, you can adjust the markups also to influence the pricing results.
You can do this for the book, the job, or the item. This one is from a practice est I was playing with..
Excellence is its own reward!
Kool Piffen Excellent thanks. Ready for my next question(s)?
Is that a line in a Cost Book or in an Estimate?
If it is a line in a Cost Book when I change/modify the hours figure from 4.85 to 5.0 does that parametrically (a big word for automatically) adjust the unit labor cost up? (Just as an aside, 4.85 hours to hang a 2-6 6-8 PH Exterior door? Molding and casing is included okay but with that figure is the lockset installation included too? Or what would you interpret that to include?
Also If it is a line in a Cost Book is there a way to change all the records for hanging Prehung Esterior doors that were previously figured at 4.85 or do you have to do them individually?
Does the $129.60 reflect the labor burden too? WC FICA Benefits etc? Or is it the Base Wage rate.
I don't mean to be a pain in the butt but I have a real constructive and productive reason (for me) why I'm asking.
Okay forget my aside note above. I see now it say field hung so that sounds more reasonable now. Force of habit with what I've been doing today that I saw Field Hung but read it as Pre Hung. Boy can that be dangerous when you don't check yourself on that kind of stuff. the #4 question still stands though. Is there a way to change all the Exterior Field Hung items in the Cost Book to reflect a different Labor Hour figure in a batch process?
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here's the same item in the cost book for editing. if I edit in the book, it applies to all estimates I use that itme on. if I edit it in the estimate, it ponly applies to that item there.
I can also do a copy/paste of the info and create a new similar item in the book or the estimate and edit to change that new item to reflect a special circumstance.
What I am finding helpful in this program is that you set up phjases of the job from beginning. A phase is a portion of the building, say the kitchen addition is one phase and the remodel of the dining room is another phase. When I work within the phase and select items from the book to transport to the estimate, it already has figured the area. For instance, if I select baseboard, the right amt of base board is calculated as it enters the line. If I select maple floring, the right amt is brought in. But as with this door, if I select a particular door, it only enters one, since it doesn't know how many, so I still have to review and edit the whole estimate.
.
Excellence is its own reward!
No, it doesn't parametrically cjhange everything on through. If I cange to five hours I still have to change the labor cost item. They should be linked, IMO to save that step.
The labor time is there for you to edit because the program lets you crank out a report of number of total hours or phase hours or other breakdowns you would need to scehdule for to get the job done..
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin: "No, it doesn't parametrically cjhange everything on through. If I cange to five hours I still have to change the labor cost item. They should be linked, IMO to save that step."
Of course they should! That's insane that they're not and in my opinion it's just real bad programming on HomeTech's part to the point I gotta say what were they thinking! It doesn't matter is your talking about a spread sheet or a database those two fileds are related and should change together. I went to a trade show with Sonny once and this was before HomeTech even had a Labor Hours field in their application. The guy there tried to tell me it wasn't important while I then asked him how a contractor was supposed to produce a schedule from an estimate. He told me the contractor should just look at the estimate and estimate times for the schedule. I asked him you mean they should guess at it?
I guess they still don't think it's important or understand the value and purpose of that relationship.
Anyway I'm gonna email you too thru this Prospero System to tell you why I'm asking these questions.
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Apparently, they listened to you while saying that it wasn't important, because in this newest version I can print a scheduling report that shows all the hours.
For instance,i just reviewed that report in the est I am working on and saw a tremendous # of hours for ceramic tile install. I went back to check where they were all coming from and found that they got totalled together from,
Wall covering - tile on wlls in showers
Countertops - tile in kitchen
Floorcoverings - tile on bathroom floors
To come up with time for the tile setter.
I don't know if there is a way to separate or if I would need to set up separate items of my own that don't link together.
I'll look for your e-mail.
Excellence is its own reward!
Man you're killing me here. Every time I read back again there's another Q hidden in there that I missed.
Each item must be edited individually in the book.
I'd say the rate does include the average labour burden for this area, from what I know, but I'd have to call and ask them to be sure. The important thing is to check it for your cost for comparison..
Excellence is its own reward!
Ehh, you just wait till I start asking question tomorrow....
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I'm working on an estimate so I'll have her warmed up..
Excellence is its own reward!
Not precisely on topic, but the same ballpark:
I have a friend who seems to have this compulsion against generating his own numbers for things. I believe its just the fear of making a mistake. Potentially fatal flaw. He is always asking during conversations "but how would you bid that?" It galls me. He has looked into Craftsman and Means and others and gets in a rut there because it isn't handed to him on a silver platter. I repeatedly make the argument to him that he has to come up with this on his own and even if I were to hand him numbers, they aren't his, they won't work, and he's taking a bigger risk. I had occasion today discuss this some with him.
I recently finished trimming a house for a builder whom I have not previously worked for. He said my method of pricing was so different than what he was used to he didn't know ahead of time how it would all pan out. I asked, a little surprised, what he was used to. He reached in his glovebox and gave me an itemised bill from a house someone else had recently done for him. Talk about convoluted. The way this guy came up with his numbers is a complete mystery to me. I took it home and looked at it, searching for rationale. On some things he was drastically lower than I was, on others so high I almost couldn't believe he could get that much for such a simple task.
I put it to a simplified test. I took the house I just did and added up an invoice based on the other guys price list. Unbelievable. The net on the whole job was four bucks different.
The moral of the story and the weight to the argument is that (in my mind) you have to take the time to come up with it yourself. Someone elses numbers are likely to look convoluted on paper. You dont know where they're coming from, you don't know what factors in to them, you don't know what to do with them if something changes between one job and the next. You might use them and get away with it on a job, and you might just lose your tail. In the end, what matters probably isn't that they price it as a unit and you price in by linear feet. What matters more is that you know what went into it because you made it, and you know how to make it adapt to a changing landscape. The end result might be really close to the same thing money wise, but it's flying blind if you didn't do the leg work up front.
And no, JH, your rep preceeds you and I'm not attempting to incite anything here. Just something that was on my mind today and tonight. I figure the number of folks who read a thread on estimating, someone might get something out of the opinion.
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
You make that case really well.
As an example, for installing a gas range, the labor in the program shows as something like $68.45. That might work for a perfect set up with unit already delivered and unpackaged to just turn a couple of nuts anmd level a leg or two.
But here on an island, I can figure a whole day devoted to going to get the unit, unpackaging it, getting help to haul it inside off the truck, and then setting it up and testing or adjusting burners.
Excellence is its own reward!
RW–"[he]gets in a rut there because it isn't handed to him on a silver platter." Ya I know that type exactly. I talk to them all the time asking me what to charge for this or that and it irks me too. I use Craftsman and Means and a few of the others as a place to start but then that data only really becomes ours after I've used it once or twice and I can make some real judgments regarding it veracity. It's a great place to start but not to count on.
With something I've been working on the past couple of weeks I got to thinking there's a whole bunch of ways you can potentially make a huge errors using that data straight out of the book. I've gotta write that list and reasoning out sometime soon while I'm still thinking about it.
"I put it to a simplified test. I took the house I just did and added up an invoice based on the other guys price list. Unbelievable. The net on the whole job was four bucks different." That's a good interesting story and I had it happen to me from both ends too. I still wondering and trying to figure out the logic and methods I've seen some contractors use for twenty something years now!
RW- "The moral of the story and the weight to the argument is that (in my mind) you have to take the time to come up with it yourself."
Exactly, outstanding point. BUT (big but) you also need a way to record, retrieve, update and reuse that information again and again keeping the inventing and creating estimates from scratch to a minimum.
"Someone elses numbers are likely to look convoluted on paper. You dont know where they're coming from, you don't know what factors in to them, you don't know what to do with them if something changes between one job and the next." Couldn't agree more. It helpful to see other peoples numbers to at times see where you are in the marketplace but that's also a very dangerous thing for many if not most contractors to do. A lot of contractors when the do the math to come up with a price of lets say $500 do do something and then find out that a bunch of others in the marketplace are doing it for $400 feel they have to lower their price and then wonder why they are losing money.
Ya want to say hey dummy you just figured out you needed to charge $500 to make a money on the job. What changed that that you figured you could do it for $400 and still be okay!
"And no, JH, your rep preceeds you and I'm not attempting to incite anything here." My rep proceeds me? Ugh-oh. What rep is that? Anyway inciting a discussion or something about estimating and pricing methods is probably a good thing for everyone here. Look at the value of that NO MORE FREE ESTIMATES DAMMIT! discussion. I didn't get into it because it was happening far faster than I could keep up with and I was working on something else. It was really enlightening and interesting reading it though and I thought it was a good thing for everyone on all four sides of the issue. Interesting too just a few days before the same thing came up over on JLC and got killed within a few posts by all the wet rags thrown on it over there. 160 posts here. Love live BreakTime
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Yes yes yes.
I think the clincher for me has been determining what, specifically, constitutes an easy and adjustable way of keeping track of what I used to charge or what I used to compute things. I don't have it solved yet. I'm sort of in a quagmire of files and files and files of the spreadsheets I've used to build almost every job. If I ever learned to use Access, I might be able to tie something like that all together. As it stands, I'm relying on this acute memory of mine to say "Ah yes, remarkably like the Jones' place two years ago, now that file is . . ." and then I go look at that, and see what I made and what worked and what didn't. But it seems that there is a better way. I just haven't devoted the required time to getting there.
Fortunately, the memory is serving well. Last year I hit within $2/manhour of my target on over 90% of the work. The remaining jobs were evenly divided between celebrations and sincere learning experiences. I have a great story of the door that came from the bowels of hell to ruin my life and how I finally overcame it with pure sweat equity, but another time.
Clincher #2 I see looming in the future. I've stuck with remodeling for some time. Having another friend turn successful new GC has opened some opportunities for trimming new construction, and now I'm branching out. Now I have to keep track of two sets of data, one for remodel work and one for new. Do I charge the same to hang a door in your finished house as I do when I'm doing 20 in a row? Ha. That's taken some considerations as well. A new empty home lends itself to speed more than what I have gotten used to.
At any rate, I won't elaborate on the rep. I'll just let you chew on that wondering what ever I was thinking when I said it :-)"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
RW "Now I have to keep track of two sets of data, one for remodel work and one for new."
RW I'm not so sure they are that different. What I mean is that to me "Install[ing a] solid or architectural pre-hung interior door" is "Install[ing a] solid or architectural pre-hung interior door" is "Install[ing a] solid or architectural pre-hung interior door"
I'll use a base unit cost such as"Install solid or architectural pre-hung interior door" @ .842 labors hours per unit whether it's remodeling or new construction. What you you then do to account for differences is add a multiplier or surplus charge kind of like a tax to that base amount to account for the fact that it's taking place in ####finished home remodeling project. That helps account for things like you have to be careful moving through the space. You can't store the materials close to where they're going in and you need to carry them all the way from the garage or even carry them back and forth between the garage where you cut them and bedroom where they're getting installed.
The problem is I can't come up with one set price for any remodeling installation, the conditions are always slightly or even radically different and need to be modified for specifically for the condition encountered.
A lot of the remodeling installation we do are in projects that are essentially new construction anyway. I prefer to adjust for the conditions specifically. I had a project a little over a year ago where exactly half of the doors and trim were installed in new construction conditions while the other half were in an ultra high end finished and decorated wing of the home. Ya had to put the protective covers on you shoes to go in there. Everything in the finished end took at least a third longer to do and when I had conditions such as the door was being installed in a room that was already carpeted I had a surplus charge in my cost book I could add on to the quote for those doors which added maybe another forty minutes to the installation time and price for having to cut the bottom of the door. My own company's cost book is just full of those little add on surplus charges that I've compiled over the years.
"At any rate, I won't elaborate on the rep. I'll just let you chew on that wondering what ever I was thinking when I said it :-) " I've probably got a 50-50 split between a good reputation and reviews as well as the bad ones so I guess I'll just have to keep on guessing.
I gonna email you thorugh this Prospero System to tell you why I'm asking these questions so keep an eye out for that message.
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In the online version, I could adjust the markup, but not the rate for paid labor. In the full version , I have more adjustments that I can make
Excellence is its own reward!
Jerrald
Although this is a program that is relevent to Australia, I find it usefull for the occassional Insurance job I do. As to your question on relevance, I did some post mortems on jobs I bid ,won and did OK on to compare them with. Surprisingly they came out very acceptably similar, so I am happy with it. My only concern is on the smaller repairs their costs are way out, so I know to adjust accordingly.
Here is some of the layout to give you an idea of the setup. All fields are changeable and you can add other items.
quittintime
mark, is that an online program by subscription or on your hard drive? It sems more of a spreadsheet program while the Home tech one seems more of a database type..
Excellence is its own reward!
Hi Piffin
No it's an online sub. ( http://www.reedconstructiondata.com.au ) The database is updated quarterly. The very quick copy and paste I did doesn't show the full set up with check boxes etc. You can either print off the estimate direct, save as PDF and print or export to Excell.
regards
markquittintime
Wow Reed Business Information is every where. I pretty sure they own RS Means over here and are the publishers of serval magazines such as Profesional Builder Professional Remodeler and Luxury Builder and operate the HousingZone Site. You've got them down there too huh?
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10 mm plasterboard...that's 3/8" isn't it? Is that the common thickness in Oz?
What is the "Plant" catagory?
"timber skirting" ...same as baseboard?
Do it right, or do it twice.
Elcid
1. yes
2. a small bush
3. yes
regards
markquittintime
There are plenty to choose from:
https://www.procore.com/estimating
https://proest.com/
https://costestimator.co.uk
https://www.fieldwire.com/
https://buildertrend.com/
Most have free trials too but all take some time to setup and get used to.