ESTIMATING

Specifications

• Importing electronic bills of quantities

• Re-using data from previous bids, for new tenders

• Resource-based analytical estimating

• IIntegration of Indirect Costs

• Various databases of item unit rates and resources

• Free-format spreadsheet pricing

• Analysis documents by specialities, resources, amounts and percentages

• Analysis documents by specialities, resources, amounts and percentages

• Multi-currency estimates, bills and resources

• Customised working document templates

• Subcontractor and supplier proposals, analysis and databases

• Preparation and analysis of alternative proposals

• Report editor and data export

• Dynamic integration with the Planning and Cashflow Modules.

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Estimating
With the Candy System, an estimator can prepare a detailed and accurate tender in reduced time whilst being able to easily identify the constraints and critical elements of the budget.

The implementation and use of pricing libraries enables the development of consistent, accurate, and well documented rate build-ups using resources, that are priced in the local currency or calculated from foreign currencies. The user can define up to 16 foreign currencies and alter the relative exchange rates at any time.

Changes are made in a controlled manner, minimising errors and speeding up the preparation of budgets.

Bill items can be arranged in a structured bill with different sections. The item can reference clients' specifications and have external links associated. They can be sorted and filtered by user-defined codes.

Tender bills of quantities can be easily imported from files provided by the client, or just as easily created from standard bills that are freely available. They can also be adapted from previous bids.

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Alternative Tenders
Up to 8 different alternative solutions can be considered in a tender, which allows different work processes and materials to be compared on a single bill. Each of the alternatives will be compiled to a separate estimate for the finalization procedures, which include adding the indirect costs and applying the markups.

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Indirect Costs
Indirect costs are calculated on a separate bill of quantities within the budget itself. In the indirect bill, the estimating features are combined with some of the features available in Planning. This enables the pricing of time-related indirect costs and fixed costs, and forecasting of the indirect costs and resource requirements. The indirect costs can be automatically spread on the direct costs in personalised manner.

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Markup
The item net rates can be marked up by applying a general markup to all items, by applying a markup by the defined trades, by applying an item-specific markup, or by appllying a markup by resource type.

On multi-currency bills, the applied markup can be adjusted to reflect on either the local or foreign components.

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Customisable Reports
In the report managers, a wide range of standard reports are available, and these can be modified to create personalised reports that comply with the organization's requirements such as presentation fonts and company logos.

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Free-format pricing worksheets
Unit rates are calculated based on resources and production rates, in free-format analytical worksheets which can be used in the calculation of other unit rates.

Comments and descriptive notes can be included within the worksheet without affecting the calculations. This ensures that everyone involved in tendering has a full understanding of how the price was determined. This information is invaluable when, at a later stage, different people must control the tender budget,

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Subcontract Rate Comparison (Adjudicator)
Subcontract packages can be created for the items that are to be performed by subcontractors, and once the subcontractors have submitted their proposals, their rates can be brought into the adjudicator for comparison and analysis. The selected subcontractor's rates are then transferred directly to the estimate.

A similar application exists for the analysis of proposals for resource supplies (e.g.: ready-mixed concrete) .

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Integration of the Estimate and Planning
Items from the bill of quantities can be assigned to the planning activities and vice versa The result of this linking process is an accurate forecast of quantities and costs over time.

Value and amount forecasts can be obtained for each bill item, showing resource usage or value, by complex or simple resources, or by total net amount, or by selling amount. Similar forecasts can be obtained by schedule activity.

Any changes that are made to the planning, or the estimate, will be immediately reflected on all of the forecasts.

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Cashflow from the Forecast
Estimate-linked forecasts can be used in the Cashflow module, on any Cashflow scenario that has been setup before, or as a starting point for a new Cashflow scenario.

This ensures that all items are included and that the cashflow model is in line with the estimate. It allows alternative bids to be tested and, as soon as the value of the final bid is available, it can be considered in the cashflow forecast.

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Tender finalisation
Last-minute changes can be effected quicky and with confidence at any moment until submission. The speed of calculation allows alternative strategies and proposals to be evaluated immediately, and the affected items can be updated so that the best proposal can be presented at submission.