Last week we asked readers to share tales about how construction software has made life easier. In a recent conversation a ConstructionSoftwareReview.com writer had with Daniel Niedens, a principal at Colvin Kitchen & Bath, we learned how long it took, and how difficult it was, to prepare construction bids and turn them into purchase orders without the use of specialized construction software. (In this particular case, Colvin bought Smart Contractor. His full review of that job cost accounting software application will be live shortly.)

Niedens first described the complexity of the old process of preparing construction bids: 

Originally we had a spreadsheet template and an in-house price book for entering the item cost/labor into this spreadsheet. When I did a quote, I would open the template and get out our price book. I would pull the prices and numbers out of the price book, enter them into the spreadsheet and enter the labor into a separate column. If we did not have a certain item already figured in our price book, then I would have to get out the manufacturer’s catalog and price book, then do the math on our cost plus mark up to come up with the number to enter into the spreadsheet. This would do only one thing for me and that was just to establish a cost for the project.

Niedens continued by telling us what it took to prepare the written proposal:

I would then take this completed spreadsheet and cut and paste a written proposal based on what I had estimated.  We did have a catalog of already written, generic descriptions of items to cut and paste, but I still needed to edit this for the specific item or explanation based on the project. This left open the possibility for missing items or writing items into the proposal that were never charged for. Lots of check and re-checks needed to make sure that they both matched to a “T.” I’m not in the business of giving things away and, at today’s material costs, it doesn’t take many [misidentified items] to get your attention.

The proposals then had be edited and checked to make sure mistakes were caught. Niedens noted:

Having, then, to edit both the spreadsheet and the written proposal separately with all the details involved in a kitchen or bathroom got crazy and time-consuming.

If the customer had not walked out during that two-hour ordeal and the deal was signed, then the real work could begin on turning that info into the correct part numbers and counts for the purchase orders. Niedens would pull out all the catalogs that had anything to do with the job, look up each item and handwrite cost information on a sheet. An assistant would then go into the archive of pre-made purchase orders and type this into the correct fields. Niedens then had to do another check just to make sure no mistakes were made.

All told, Niedens said it could take almost four hours to put together construction bids and their corresponding purchase orders. With Smart Contractor, on the other hand, the process takes less than an hour. Time, as the adage goes, is money, and Niedens reckons that he’s saved a lot of both.

Have you seen similar savings after you started using construction software? Do you want to share your story with us? Leave a comment or send me an email.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Job cost accounting software, Construction software user stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.