The Best Estimating And Take-off Software

zx9rams

From all your experiances which software would you consider is the best for profesional estimating. Looking especially for input from other pro estimators. Mine intrest is in residential general contracting and light commercial general contracting. Software fetures i'm looking for are: take-off capabilities, estimating and proposal. My budget is arround 5K to 7K.
Thanks.

Bob Kovacs

If you've got that kind of $$ to spend on a system, Timberline, MC2, and QuickBid are all excellent. They all have takeoff and estimating modules, but none have a proposal writer. I actually can't think of any package other than a few rinky-dink programs that try to integrate proposal writing with estimating- most stick to what they do best, which is takeoff and estimating.

Bob

zx9rams

Thanks Bob,
Have you heard of this company http://www.easyestimating.com/
Looks like they have estimating, take-off and proposal all in one.

Sarah9910

From my experience; excellent (by this I mean iincluding roof pitch formulas, and all kinds of advanced features) estimating software may not be the same software as the administrative (bookkeeping) software and many times the good proposals are in the admin software. But...most all of the estimating softwares mentioned here, import into systems like Master Builder, American Contractor and even QuickBooks. There you can create proposals and once the job is accepted, the magic of analysis begins if you continue on with job costing to the codes your estimate is based on. This is all seamless with many softwares. Sometimes in many companies, the estimators want their software and it's not the best software for the bookkeeping or financial analysis, and neither dept thinks that integration is feasable. It is feasable and it is the key to knowing if your estimating is coming in as expected and allows you to learn from the way the data entry is done. Also allows you to create PO's from the estimate and many more things.

On another note, many softwares include both the bookkeeping/financial analysis and estimating and are not bad. Depends on your level of needs for estimating. Just takes time setting them up the first time, but often you can purchase databases already set up for your industry.

__________________
Sarah Keiser, Business Consultant for Contractors
Success In-Formation LLC
Leading the Way in Software Education
www.successif.biz

Bill Norris

Sarah,

Are you saying that easyestimating.com has good products. I use Quickbooks Enterprise solutions and want something that can integrate with it without too much hassle.

What do you think?

Thanks, Bill

Sarah9910

Honestly Bill, I don't know that software. Couldn't say either yeah or nah. Sorry

__________________
Sarah Keiser, Business Consultant for Contractors
Success In-Formation LLC
Leading the Way in Software Education
www.successif.biz

Manny gonzalez

How do you estimate linear feet of high hats for the ceiling when you have a irregular shape house.

Aladdin Builders

OnCenter software has all the bells and whistles... including: takeoff, bidding, proposal writing and reports. I just purchased this and we are very happy with the all in one software..Finally!

Call Melissa at OnCenter, she is extremely helpful.

www.oncenter.com

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Aladdin Builders
South Florida
www.AladdinBuilders.com
www.surfacesbyAladdin.com

Sarah9910

Hi Bill..sorry for the delay. I'm not really sure the best for importing into QB. I know two people now who have UDA, I'm curious to see it in action, I've seen it a little bit but not too much.

It's important to know WHAT you want to import into QB. You need your budget in there to get your estimate to compare to actual costs. If you budget is only a few lines, it can be keyed quickly.

If you don't do PO's you don't need your estimating items in the financial package, because that is usually where they integrate.

Think about what it is you are trying to integrate before you spend too much money.

__________________
Sarah Keiser, Business Consultant for Contractors
Success In-Formation LLC
Leading the Way in Software Education
www.successif.biz

Sarah9910

Haha..just realized I responded to a Really old post...sorry everybody.

__________________
Sarah Keiser, Business Consultant for Contractors
Success In-Formation LLC
Leading the Way in Software Education
www.successif.biz

pefubago

I was looking at that online. Is it real pricey? I am still building a book of business, need good, quicker estimating software, but am not ready to spend thousands on software just yet. I would really like to find something that is web based, possibly on a subscription basis.

ReDesign

Check this one PriMus-DCF, the program is free to download and to activate. Just search "PriMus-DCF" by google and watch the video of the program at work in the video section of the site.


I want to suggest to all of you the one I prefer currently to build up estimates. ....I began to use it only about 3 months ago. And now I get it on Laptop, at home, and some colleagues/partners are using it too. We can share data easily (HTML,pdf,DCF,DOC,XLS,..)
It is a Word-like editor to build up estimates in a few minutes, and as you edit new contracts (Bills of quantities), you build your own database with your descriptions to use in next projects. The free version is featured with a useful takeoff function to extract measurements from AutoCAD.

bye,
Greg