EstimatorXpress. More than estimating software. Tips to improve your building company with the EstimatorXpress My Projects toolset

Want to make a higher profit by managing your construction company better? Follow our tips to improve your building company by making your projects work for you. Bringing estimation software on board to help your building firm can provide more benefit than just faster and more accurate estimating. Read on to find out about one of the many hidden advantages of investing in estimating software.

Why estimating software?

It’s written all over our website. EstimatorXpress will save you time, money and effort producing estimates and can guarantee 100% accuracy. But, EstimatorXpress is way more than just an award winning estimation program as it provides trades, builders and developers with a range of reports and charts to help them manage their projects once the job has been won (and EstimatorXpress  users win up to 230% more business!).

Hidden benefits of the best estimation software

Firstly, EstimatorXpress helps protect your profit through calculating likely wastage, inflation and wear and tear costs on your plant. It is often easy to forget to factor in the wear and tear of a shovel, wheelbarrow or perhaps the use of a tube of mastic lying in the van. All these items erode your profit if they aren’t accounted for properly, and EstimatorXpress calculates these for you automatically.

Secondly all the reports and charts EstimatorXpress produces directly (and instantly!) from your estimate are enough reason alone to invest in the software. It automatically produces over 80 plus helpful management reports automatically from your estimate data (no typing required!). These include detailed cost breakdowns so you can see where your money is going exactly, cutting lists, material schedules (Bill of quantities) and labour schedules and tonne more – check them out here. Not to mention profit forecasts, stage payment profiles and cashflow to keep you in the black on your jobs.

Thirdly a really important toolset for business-savvy builders is “My Projects”. ‘My Projects’ is a module found in EstimatorXpress Total Toolkit versions and above that can multiply the benefits of the reports outlined above by allowing trades, builders and developers to manage all their jobs with ease. By linking individual jobs together as a Workload Project you can see total cost reports, complete schedules of materials, build programmes, order schedules, cashflow and profit for your entire company’s workload as a whole. Plus you can see exactly how much money the company is proposed to make over the next X months. This can help you make informed business decisions about expansion, taking on staff, or purchasing new equipment such as a van. Watch the video to see My Projects in action.

What is ‘My Projects’?

As we mentioned above, My Projects allows you to take a combined view of all your projects together in order to enhance the overall management of workload, cashflow, materials, labour and more. Looking at all your work together, whether simultaneous jobs or back-to-back, allows for further time, effort and cost cutting advantages.

Tips to improve your building company

Tip 1)

Use the detailed cost reports of your combined workload together with cashflow reports (instantly produced off the back of your estimates) to show the outflow of money from your business, which highlights when you’ll need to see stage payments from clients or finance/bank lending coming in.

Tip 2)

If you’re looking for development finance the cost and cashflow reports in My Projects will help secure you finance. The software allows you to instantly produce a multi-unit/site cashflow combined with total detailed costs for the bank or lender showing exactly where the money is going.

Tip 3)

Every building firm will find the Gantt chart of all the projects you have underway and forecast useful. See exactly where your jobs or projects are, how they overlap or gaps you have in workload. Plan your projects to perfection!

Tip 4)

Use the labour schedules and Gantt chart together to know what labour you need and when. Avoid over-stretching your company and schedule your preferred subcontractors in advance.

Tip 5)

Improve your bargaining power with builders merchants by supplying them with a more complete, forward view of your material requirements. That way you can increase discounts and avoid endless (expensive!) trips to the merchants. One trip to agree a good deal on the entire job with delivery to suit your build program.

Tip 6)

What about a profit forecast based on all your projects? See how much money you’re making and from which projects – and do more of those!

There are over 80 reports in My Projects to help your business. The above is a shortlist of just 6. The potential money and time saving benefits of properly managing and analysing the way you work is what separates a good building firm from a great building firm.

Combine EstimatorXpress with ProjectXpert and you’ve got super-powers…

How My Projects can help Trades, Builders and Developers

Trades who have many small projects on can benefit by being able to see their continuous workflow.

Small-scale builders can use My Projects to move seamlessly from one project to the next. This avoids costly gaps in workload.

Large-scale builders can use My Projects to manage multiple, simultaneous projects. This prevents companies over extending themselves financially or in terms of labour.

Developers can use My Projects to keep an eye on all work for an entire site or even multiple sites, being able to order materials in bulk, shift labour around for optimal efficiency and stay on top of cash flow.

Didn’t realise EstimatorXpress did all that? Want to know what else it can do?

All that is just one of the many hidden benefits of choosing EstimatorXpress as your estimating software. If you want to know any more about the My Projects module or anything else that EstimatorXpress can do, give us a call on 0117 9167898. We’d love to chat.