BidMaker estimates materials and labor

Enhanced

The direct result of customer feedback and great software design, the third version of BidMaker is an even more powerful estimating program with numerous new features and enhancements.

Simplified

One of the biggest enhancements in R3 is the additional ways to calculate the cost of labor. “From feedback and interviews with our customers we found that most people have a difficult time calculating billable wages for their workers.” says Brian Webb, President of Avontus Software. To tackle this problem you can now enter tax rates as well as the burdened and non burdened values that your workers incur. The rates you set up depend on your state or province and various optional values such as union dues, pension, health, safety costs and many others. By defining these values as well as profit and overhead you can drill down on exactly what your labor costs are and ensure you’re billing the correct amount.

Easy Setup

In addition to the 40+ import catalogs for scaffolding and shoring, BidMaker ships with the entire handset catalog from Symons and Universal, including various accessories and ties. These import catalogs are useful even if you don’t have the exact manufacturer's equipment; you can import the catalogs and change the part numbers to match what you use.

Hours

A common way to determine the hours it takes to build a scaffold project is to assign hourly factors to individual parts in your equipment. As you’re creating your equipment list you get the total number of hours required to build the project. Building on this feature, BidMaker now includes a way to ‘lock’ the result of this factor total to your crew hours. After you set up your crews and workers you’ll see the factors distribute to the workers’ hours as you modify your materials list. The result is effortless and accurate labor costs tied to the actual crew makeup and billable wages.

Easy Navigation

The user interface has also seen big improvement. The main application has changed to an easier layout with the various cost groups (labor, materials, and costs) separated into tabbed pages. The feel is similar to working with Microsoft Excel worksheets and makes navigating through your bid documents effortless. New and upgraded icons and menus maintain the feel of a standard Windows program. The main application icon and the bid document icons have all been upgraded to match more of what you’d expect for a program designed to run in Windows XP and Vista.

Assemblies

Still a proven way to save time, you can create bid document templates and equipment assemblies to help automate common tasks. Try the free trial to see how easily you can create a bill of materials for a frame scaffold stair tower any number of levels in height. The logic can easily extend to systems scaffold towers used in industrial applications as well as common formwork and shoring structures. For more complex structures you can purchase separate Plug-ins which provide automatic material lists, drawings and engineering calculations. The FrameWall Plug-in counts and draws frame scaffolds for straight walls and the SystemsTank Plug-in draws systems scaffold for round tanks and circular structures.

Custom Contract

For estimates that require a rental contract or terms and conditions you can embed a custom page into the bid print preview. There’s also a field for your customer’s name to customize the document. Still included is the ability to open the entire print preview window in a Microsoft Word or WordPad so you can add your custom logo or use your company’s standard template. Instant PDF documents can be effortlessly emailed or saved.

Driving Directions

Driving directions use Google Maps, giving you satellite and street views.

Labor

Total hours based on hourly factor in materials

Calculate billable wage for each worker based on taxes, profit, and other burdens

Combine workers into crews and set crews specific to dates or spread total hour factors into individual worker's time within the crew

Print Preview

Save your bids as PDF files and email them

Custom page for notes, terms, or other standard text

Save as Quickbooks invoice import file

Save as web page (htm)

Bill of Materials (no pricing) and Material List (includes pricing)

Detailed or simple Labor and Crew Cost reports

Open your bid in Microsoft Word to add your company logo, import to Excel, or re-arrange data

Other consumables cost report that can be grouped by category

Materials

Add and edit master material list, change your pricing at any time

Backup and email your master material list to your co-workers to update their prices

Factors to calculate hours

Price materials for rent or sell using custom rent and sell columns

Price your materials for rent using % of list for each rental period

Apply discounts for each rental period or an overall discount for all periods

Discounts, markups and taxes

Totals for weight and number of pieces for freight and other calculations

Override prices in your bid for special situations

Use Assemblies to group and add common materials and their relationships, then add them to your bid

Other Costs

Add costs for consumables, freight, or other items

Use other costs as unit-based items, defining your own units and items

Discount and markup each item

Taxes, discounts and markups for overall item list

Quick costs for adding an item without adding it to the master item list

Group unit cost items into categories

Other Software Features

Save bids as individual bid files

Email bids to your customers or co-workers

Integrated Windows standard help system

Simple installation using reliable Microsoft msi installer and patching technology

Plug-ins available to enhance material counting

Specific

Integrated

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