| Author |
Message |
Valien
Guest
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 Posted:
Wed May 04, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Estimation software? |
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Anyone structured cabling contractors here use estimation software? If
so, which ones? I have demoed RapidBOM and Accubid's products. I'm
leaning towards Accubid because of the Labor calculations they have in
place - very slick.
Right now bidding on cabling jobs is a ugly process because we do it by
hand, paper, peachtree, etc.
I'm looking for a faster way to do this (and more accurate too!)
~Allen
www.triplectech.com |
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Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed May 04, 2005 10:23 pm Post subject:
Re: Estimation software? |
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Valien wrote:
| Quote: | Anyone structured cabling contractors here use estimation software? If
so, which ones? I have demoed RapidBOM and Accubid's products. I'm
leaning towards Accubid because of the Labor calculations they have in
place - very slick.
Right now bidding on cabling jobs is a ugly process because we do it by
hand, paper, peachtree, etc.
I'm looking for a faster way to do this (and more accurate too!)
~Allen
www.triplectech.com
|
I also use hand, paper and custom Excel spreadsheet. I have demoed Accubid
few years back, and it left me with impression that by the time I insert
all the data in, I might very well be done doing the calculations
manually. I'm not saying you can't use it, I'm just saying that learning
curve seemed too much for the amount of bid work we do.
One other thing is: if you totally rely on any software, it may leave you
with a false sense of security in bidding a job. The output is only as
intelligent as the data you put in, so you'll have to watch it almost with
the same attention as you would your paper-based calculations.
--
Dmitri Abaimov, RCDD
http://www.cabling-design.com
Cabling Forum, color codes, pinouts and other useful resources for
premises cabling users and pros
http://www.cabling-design.com/homecabling
Residential Cabling Guide
-------------------------------------
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Jgolan
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu May 05, 2005 12:20 am Post subject:
Re: Estimation software? |
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Allen,
Like Dmitri, I also use a custom Excel templete. I have used this sheet
for simple bids (a couple of thousand) to projects of over 10 million.
I have looked at everyone's so called canned packages but you cannot get a
feel for the project by just doing mechanical take-offs. In addition, by
working in Excel, filling in of the customer/consultant price sheets is
much easier as they frequenly also work in Excel.
Joe Golan, RCDD
-------------------------------------
Valien wrote:
| Quote: | Anyone structured cabling contractors here use estimation software? If
so, which ones? I have demoed RapidBOM and Accubid's products. I'm
leaning towards Accubid because of the Labor calculations they have in
place - very slick.
Right now bidding on cabling jobs is a ugly process because we do it by
hand, paper, peachtree, etc.
I'm looking for a faster way to do this (and more accurate too!)
~Allen
www.triplectech.com
|
##-----------------------------------------------#
Article posted with Cabling-Design.com Newsgroup Archiv
http://www.cabling-design.com/forum
no-spam read and post WWW interface to your favorite newsgroup -
comp.dcom.cabling - 1966 messages and counting
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Valien
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu May 05, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Estimation software? |
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|
Thanks for the info. I have not used spreadsheets a ton. Maybe that's
my problem. We use Peachtree Premium Accounting and I typically do that
for quotes because I can turn them into PO's pretty quickly as well
keep tabs on our current inventory.
If I were to go with a straight spreadsheet method I'm not sure where I
would begin as I would have to design it from ground up (haven't had
too much luck finding samples on the 'net).
~Allen |
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Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri May 06, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Estimation software? |
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Valien wrote:
| Quote: | Thanks for the info. I have not used spreadsheets a ton. Maybe that's
my problem. We use Peachtree Premium Accounting and I typically do that
for quotes because I can turn them into PO's pretty quickly as well
keep tabs on our current inventory.
If I were to go with a straight spreadsheet method I'm not sure where I
would begin as I would have to design it from ground up (haven't had
too much luck finding samples on the 'net).
~Allen
|
I, too attempted to do quotes in Quickbooks, which is our accounting
system. What a waste of time that was. Cabling project has sometimes
hundreds of different parameters, and there was not way to change anything
in QuickBooks, although you could have rather easily allocate costs to
jobs. But if you are bidding, you are not supposed to be seeing that in
your accounting system until you actually get the job, so it just did not
work for me at all.
OTOH, I am sure that someone might have already built some add-ons that
can use your accounting software's database for components' and payroll
costs (Tiger Paw comes to mind as one of the possible examples, but I am
not sure about them)
--
Dmitri Abaimov, RCDD
http://www.cabling-design.com
Cabling Forum, color codes, pinouts and other useful resources for
premises cabling users and pros
http://www.cabling-design.com/homecabling
Residential Cabling Guide
-------------------------------------
##-----------------------------------------------#
Article posted with Cabling-Design.com Newsgroup Archiv
http://www.cabling-design.com/forum
no-spam read and post WWW interface to your favorite newsgroup -
comp.dcom.cabling - 1973 messages and counting
##-----------------------------------------------## |
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