Estimating

A user can create estimate for a finalized bill of quantities from the estimating application, you must create an estimate by your bill of quantities from initial screen or create from the Finalized Bill of Quantities page with a click, this will create an estimate and open the estimating worksheet. There are there (3) flexible options to estimating in Rapisurv; you can import a rate sheet if you have one ready in your account, this is the fastest method to estimate a project and can complete an estimate within a minute if all items of the bill are linked to items in the rate sheet. The second method is to use the rate builder, the estimating worksheet is divided into three segments. 1. Cost Summary, 2. Input Summary, 3. Rate Builder, the rate builder loads material, machine, tools, and labour prices from the account pricing table use it to build rate for you in the estimate as you select them. The third option is to manually enter your rate. All options are flexible and can be combined in any estimate.

Material pricing

To understand how the estimating "Rate builder" works, a user should understand where the material prices influencing the estimates are stored and how they are managed. Prices of materials are available in "my prices" under the "Account Settings", a user can update their own material prices "for external estimating" as needed or the they can import latest prices from Rapisurv updated list. When a user click on the "Import latest prices", the table of prices of that user is refreshed with most recent prices from Rapisurv and this step cannot be reversed. It is recommended that you do not refresh your prices in the middle of an on-going estimation projects, because the rates will be calculated based on the new prices, but if the goal was to use our latest prices them user may go ahead with refresh. A user will have the option to manually edit their own prices, however, when the account is refreshed with import prices function, the previous price edits will be overwritten with latest prices from Rapisurv. You can also create and update prices for "internal cost planning" these prices are used in the cost planning and forecasting applications. 

Build Rate

In the "Rate Builder" part of the application, user have the option to select from material, plant, tool, and labour, for standard description that have some input linked by default. To build your rate, you may select the specific input or variant that you want and the system will adjust the total in the summary segment and the rate in the bill of quantities automatically.  The pricing of the material is calculated based on the material prices in the "My prices" view of the application and allowances for transport, handling, margin for waste, and profit already added based on user settings. You can enter percentage for waste, transportation and handling of materials if you did not account for these in the material pricing page.

The Rate builder is the place to link materials to description, this enables the system to help calculate materials requirements downstream.

Use Rate Sheet

You can import a rate sheet into the project specific estimate using the import "Rate Sheet" button, this will copy over pre-built rates into the estimate saving time on descriptions that are repeated in several places. The rate sheet itself is similar to estimating view but its project-independent. 

Input Total

In the "Input total" segment, the total of each type of input that are selected is calculated; total pricing for all materials will be calculated in the material field, machines, tools and labour will also be calculated accordingly. this gives the user a mid-level summary of the totals going in the billing rate.

Estimating Rogue Items

Rogue or custom items in the bill of quantities will not have automatic rates calculated by Rapisurv because they are user specific and setting for pricing do not exist for them in the system, user must enter rates directly for rogue description in the rate field without using the 'rate builder', and Rapisurv will add it to the total. 

Estimating Preliminaries

Preliminaries' rates are not pre-determined, user must enter rates for preliminaries directly in the rate field without using the 'Rate builder', and Rapisurv will add it to the total. 

Discount or Markup

User can enter a discount or markup in percentage at the header level to adjust the total, Rapisurv will apply the discount or markup to individual rate and supersede previously calculated rates with the adjusted rate. The original saved in Rapisurv will be the basis of calculating the discount or markup, it is recommended to clear the value in the discount field before applying a markup and vice-versa to avoid user confusion. 

Tax

Tax percentage must be entered where applicable. Rapisurv will calculate tax on total cost and add it to the "Grand Total". 

Versions

User can create multiple versions of the estimate to cost different scenarios, a version must be adopted before bid can be created using the "Adopt" function. 

Create Bid

In the estimating view, user can create a bid based on their adopted version of the estimate and the status will be changed to "Bid Created", user can then go to the "Bid & Contract" application to manage the bid.