For estimators who want to see how the bid really did

The estimate becomes the budget

Most estimators finish a bid and never see it again. The job is won, a PM takes over, and the estimate gets filed in a folder. CFOS imports your estimate as the job budget by cost code, so the numbers you bid are the numbers the job is measured against.

A won bid becomes a job with its contract value. Your cost codes line up with the field and the books. A PM and a controller read the same budget you built.

Estimate against actual on every job

Job cost by cost code updates every hour. You can open a job and see where the labor went over, where the material came in under and what the sub cost. It's the feedback you rarely get until the job is closed out, if then.

When a cost code keeps coming in over, you can tell whether the unit cost was wrong or the job was managed badly. That changes what you bid next. It also gives you something to say when the owner asks why a bid was high.

The bid pipeline, win chance and lost bids

The bid pipeline holds each bid with its value, bid date and chance of winning. Lost bids stay in the list, so you can look back at what you lost and by how much. A leads form on your own website feeds the pipeline.

Contracts, bid invites and spec books are read and the terms are pulled out. That saves you from combing a spec for retainage and payment terms. Pipeline value weighted by win chance also tells the owner how much work is coming.

Feeding actual unit costs into the next bid

The loop is the reason to care. Actual unit costs from finished jobs go back to you by cost code, so the next estimate starts from what the work cost. You adjust the number, and you can explain why.

After a few jobs your estimates stay closer to the field costs. Nobody has to ask for it. The data is already there when you open the next takeoff.

A short review after each job closes

Once a job is done, pull up estimate against actual and look at the three cost codes with the biggest difference. Write down what you'd change in your unit cost or your productivity assumption. Then check the lost bids list for any bid you lost to a price you now think was a mistake on their side.

The review takes an hour or so and it pays back on the next bid. If you keep it every month, your estimating habits get measured against real results. That's a rare thing in a company this size.

What you stop doing

You stop re-keying the estimate into a budget sheet and stop asking the PM or controller how a job came out. You stop guessing at unit costs from memory. The job itself tells you now.

Your seat sees bids and job budgets. It doesn't see the company's overhead or other seats' numbers unless the owner chooses. That keeps the view short and the numbers private.

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What people ask

• Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
• For PMs who want to know how the job is doing
• For the owner who wants to know if the job made money
• Keep your estimating software. Your bid becomes the budget.
• Use all of it, or just the part you need
• One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.

QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.