Cost Estimating Software – Your Friend or Your Enemy?
With so many options out there, from apps to applications, it becomes harder and harder to choose the best tool for the job. It is no different for construction cost estimating. Back in the day, there were 3 or 4 cost estimating software on the market. As the end-user, you could not voice your preferences much, upfront costs were high, and the learning curve was steep.
Nowadays, the options for cost estimating software are plenty, updated very often to keep up with the competition, and come with onboarding training, cloud-based, feature-rich, and great customer support, to name a few.
If you go to www.softwareadvise.com and do a search for “construction cost estimating software.” you will see what I am talking about: 57 systems found! You can sort them by price, customer feedback, industry, company size, deployment, and platform. With so many options, it might be difficult to choose. This article published in Construction Executive’s Four Easy Steps to Choosing the Right Estimating Software gives us high-level guidelines and a great starting point for comparing various options.
I had the opportunity to use a rather large number of cost-estimating software; I worked for various general contractors, and they each used different applications. I bought my software applications when I started my cost consulting services a few years ago.
So how can we make the best decision when it comes to choosing the right one?
Here is my list:
- Identify what end result you expect from the software. I always start with the end result first. It does not matter how user-friendly or affordable the software is, if it does not deliver what I am looking for, I will look for other options.
- The type of reports,
- Ability to data export to other applications (scheduling, accounting),
- The ease of updating quotations from suppliers and subcontractors,
- Ability to set up and compare quotations from suppliers and subcontractors,
- ease of updating the cost estimate with the supplier/subcontractor from the comparison lists,
- Ability to manipulate the distribution of costs within the items. For example, the distribution of indirect costs and profit.
- User experience:
- Does it have a user-friendly, intuitive design?
- Does it have the ability for team collaboration?
- Does it come with a database? This can be a critical aspect. I can only think of 5 costs estimating software with an accompanying database. Of course, the database is a living resource and has to be regularly updated.
- Is customer support great? The software I use has 24×7 technical support. Hold time is not an issue, and I always get more advice than I hoped. It never fails.
- Is it cloud-based? Can it be used on multiple devices?
- Can it use and manage supplier/subcontractor communication through the bidding process?
- Pricing:
- I am not looking into it if it does not offer a free trial. I know it sounds harsh, but it happened to me before: I read the reviews, analyzed the features, etc. and bought the application, only to find it was not a great fit for me.
- The upfront cost. More and more applications come with a monthly subscription per user. It includes unlimited updates and technical support. Personally, I find this a great feature. If the monthly subscription is not an option, I would look at how much it costs for additional users and what is the additional cost for updates and technical support. For most applications, having access to updates and technical support is offered in the form of an annual subscription. Ask the provider what happens if you choose to skip a couple of years. One answer I know is that you have to pay for all the past years you did not subscribe, plus the coming year to access updates and technical support. This can be a big bill, especially if you are a small contractor.
At the end of the day, it all depends on what your needs and expectations are. I had great success and still do, using my old friend Excel. For conceptual cost estimating, if I am not using the detailed cost estimating methodology, I always rely on Excel. I also worked for general contractors who bid jobs in excess of 100 million, successfully using Excel spreadsheets.
I would like to hear your opinion on estimating software. What are your expectations from cost estimating software? Please leave a comment and share this article. I know there are other fellow cost estimators who would like to learn more.
