The central Resource and Item Libraries store all of your standard products and services in a systematic way so that your estimating is much more organised, consistent and accurate. Price lists from Suppliers can be imported electronically to ensure your quotes are always up to date, and you can capture your standard “Production Rates”, common “Variables” and methods of construction in the Item Library for optimum convenience and consistency when pricing jobs.
When preparing quotes, the powerful user defined “Variables” feature allows you to quickly change aspects like trench depths/widths or wastage to make your estimating much faster, relevant to the site and therefore more accurate.
The “Routines” feature is also a powerful tool for the Water and Sewer estimator. Routines can dramatically improve the speed of producing estimates for common Water/Sewer tasks. Benchmark Estimating Software’s unique “Water Estimator” product even includes pre-written Routines for Sewer Main Construction/Renewal, Water Main Construction/Renewal and Pumping Stations. These Routines have been developed in conjunction with Water Industry experts.
Pricing repetitive tasks with many parameters is made easy with Benchmark Estimating Software’s Routines function. This unique function is not only suited for day to day quotes but also caters for more complicated items in larger estimates. Benchmark Routines take the guesswork out of your water estimating. Routines provide you with a list of questions, much like a checklist for the Project, which once answered produces the estimate for you in a matter of seconds.
The example to the right is a Routine used to estimate the construction of a sewer main.
If you price large Projects where you have many sites (e.g. streets, pipelines etc) and where there is a similar operation at each site, then Benchmark Estimating Software’s Power Routines will save you hours in your estimating. Power Routines automate large estimates and can build the estimate for you in just a few seconds.
You can now perform detailed Item quantity calculations by using the Quantity Takeoff Sheets that are a standard feature in Benchmark Estimating Software. These sheets are presented in a spreadsheet format and can be created on a Project by Project basis or can be based off standard sheet templates from a Library.
The Quantity Takeoff Sheet example to the right shows how you can use this function to accurately calculate the volume of numerous trenches.
Benchmark Estimating Software offers clients the ability to integrate with On-Screen Takeoff, a quantity takeoff software from On Center Software. Our Takeoff Integrator feature imports your construction takeoff data from On-Screen Takeoff directly into Benchmark Estimating Software. Once imported and a Benchmark Project is populated with the values from your takeoff, you have the flexibility to use a variety of Benchmark Estimating Software features including Auto Allocate, the Item Library and Routines, to quickly create a price for your construction Project.
With Benchmark Estimating Software you can quickly and easily generate Progress Claims for your Project directly from your estimate. You can claim either by percentage or Quantity complete, and you can also handle Retentions from here.
There are numerous Progress Claim report templates available within Benchmark Estimating Software including a one-page Summary (cover sheet), detailed reports Item by Item, a Claim Report with Options (so you can customise the format of the report), and a report showing summary data for the last four Progress Claims.
Our resource-based export to Microsoft Project automatically creates a gantt chart for your project. This powerful export automatically calculates the duration of each Item (activity) in your Project and exports the Resources and costs as well.
“Benchmark’s support with implementation has been brilliant. They have assisted us with implementation into our business systems and have also helped with project management for this task. Added to this, the software’s ability to link with our other systems is vital for proficient operations. We can also see great benefits in Routines, as we are able to price water or sewage pipelines and pumping stations by simply answering 7 or 8 questions regarding the job.”
“Benchmark’s Progress Claim feature is fantastic. Using our previous spreadsheet system, producing different claims for the different jobs we have running at the one time, took many hours and was fraught with potential errors. Benchmark’s Progress Claim feature makes our Claims process a lot more efficient and eliminates the possibility of mistakes. It works really well for us that’s for sure.”
