For any business looking to improve its bid-to-win ratio, the secret lies in producing more accurate estimates in less time. Whether you’re in manufacturing, construction or technology, accurate, customizable estimates can deliver you the competitive advantage you need to secure more work, more often.
But if you’re like many businesses, you’re stuck using outdated estimating tools like Excel or Quickbooks, and you’re desperate to get out.
With traditional estimating tools like Excel unable to offer the flexible algorithms required for parametric estimating and Quickbooks trying to do everything at once, the answer to improving your estimating is in a dynamic, tailored software solution that creates sophisticated estimates in minutes, not hours.
As leaders in custom estimating software, the Alchemy team has the experience and expertise to deliver highly customized and, more importantly, highly accurate estimating solutions. Prioritizing full integration and ease of use, our custom business software is intentionally designed to improve your ROI while streamlining communication between your company and your customers.
In this article, we explore the limitations of traditional estimating software tools, the best estimating software options and the importance of customization in a robust project estimating solution.
The Limitations of Traditional Estimating Software
Estimating can be demanding and often tedious for any business. But with accuracy essential, traditional cookie-cutter estimating software simply doesn’t cut it.
Why? Every business is different, and if your estimating software doesn’t take into account the unique way your business operates, prices, and stock, accuracy goes out the window with your chances of winning the project.
For most businesses, their estimating process relies on traditional spreadsheet programs like Excel or Google Sheets because the estimating software solutions for their industry are either incomplete or nonexistent . The problem with traditional spreadsheet programs is that they come with a number of limitations that affect the ability to create detailed cost estimates quickly and accurately.
Excel-based systems lack the flexibility and customization required to accommodate the unique needs of different industries and projects, often resulting in cumbersome and error-prone manual data entry processes. Excel also lacks integration with other systems, as well as advanced features such as automated calculations, dynamic pricing models, and collaborative capabilities, limiting its ability to streamline the estimating process and ensure accuracy.
One of the biggest limitations of Excel is its reliance on static templates, which makes it challenging to adapt to changing project requirements or data. Excel requires a new template each time you do anything (add a new client, new project, etc.), but you still need a way to keep track of it all manually, which means creating folders.
Quickbooks is another popular choice, but its lack of customization and tendency to try and do everything at once makes it both hard to use and poor at execution.
What’s the Best Estimating Software?
If you’re looking to improve your bid-to-win ratio with fast and accurate estimates, you’re probably wondering about the best estimating software options. There is no shortage of off-the-shelf software solutions for construction, but the options are limited for most other industries.
When looking at the available options, you’ll often find solutions with superfluous fields and a lack of intuitive usability, not to mention the inability to share data between departments automatically. These are elements that each business cannot afford to be without. That’s where custom project estimation elevates itself above the rest.
Not all project estimating software is created equal, and the same is true for businesses. That’s why your business needs a robust project estimating solution tailored to your unique needs. That’s the beauty of Alchemy’s custom estimating software – it is entirely customized.
We are able to build you a solution from the ground up. We do this by first listening to your organizational needs before we begin to create a solution. With Alchemy, you can define custom attributes, utilize any established estimation norm from previous tools, establish seamless internal data sharing, and much more.
What to Look for in Project Estimating Software
Whether you’re a manufacturing company that custom makes costumes for dance teams or a tech provider responsible for trade conference installations, accuracy is key when it comes to your estimates. And that’s where most estimating software falls flat. For estimates to be accurate, every detail needs to be taken into account. You need a highly customizable estimating solution that matches the unique way your business estimates pricing and how you want that information to be presented to the client. It should be able to take into account the availability of supplies and components, time to completion, discounts and up-charges, labor costs, tax rates, and other unique factors.
Integration is also a key component you should look for in your estimating software, as it must be able to integrate with other systems to avoid double-keying and errors.
Our custom project estimation software streamlines the estimating process by automating complex calculations, consolidating data from various sources, and providing intuitive interfaces for input and analysis. By leveraging advanced algorithms and customizable templates, our software accelerates the estimation process and enables you to create estimates accurately and consistently with just a few clicks.
Powerful Project Management Software
What may surprise you is that robust project estimation software goes beyond just estimating; it’s actually one of your most powerful project management tools.
With the right estimating software in your arsenal, you can create accurate estimates that benefit your current projects and improve ongoing project management for more accurate bids on future projects. With a clear idea of project costs, you can bid with confidence on future projects, knowing exactly what your profit margin will be.
Create Project Estimates With Ease
Are you tired of spending hours stuck deep in spreadsheets manually creating estimates that still need to be checked and double-checked to ensure accuracy?
Relax, you simply need to switch to the right software.
With custom estimating software from the team at Alchemy, estimating couldn’t be easier. Full integration and ease-of-use are our priorities, so we tailor every piece of software to your business’s specific needs to maximize the return on your investment.
With our custom solutions, you get:
- Entry of data that’s unique to your operation
- The ability to create and revise estimates quickly and easily
- Easy integration of estimate data with budgetary information within one unified system
- The power to produce fast, professional and error-free bids that include materials, labor, equipment costs and other overheads
- Easy alignment of your estimating software with labor and material costs
- Potential integration with custom CRM, production, and inventory management systems
Project Estimation Software Specialists
As the project landscape becomes more complex and competitive, relying on spreadsheets or off-the-shelf solutions for your estimates can run the risk of losing more bids than you win.
Instead, businesses need specialized project estimating software that offers advanced functionalities tailored to their unique needs. Software that accelerates the estimation process and enables you to create estimates accurately and consistently with just a few clicks.
You can count on Alchemy for easy-to-use, powerful solutions designed specifically for your organization’s needs, regardless of what kind of customized business software you need. We’ll start by identifying organizational inefficiencies based on your recommendations and go from there! We’ll walk you through each step of the process so that no balls are dropped during the transitional phase.
Ultimately, we are invested in helping businesses save time and money by building beautiful and efficient software for business.
If you are ready to learn more about our custom estimating software and what it can do for you, don’t hesitate to schedule your free consultation and tell us about your project! We’d love to hear from you.
