Types of ELECTRICAL ESTIMATING SOFTWARE

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When you start your own electrical contracting business, you quickly realize that quoting work accurately is a priority. So begins the process of understanding what methods you need to use to quote work, and which software is best. This path generally leads you to create your own spreadsheets or look for one on the Internet because $$ matters and is usually tight in the beginning (we've included a free,  Electrical Estimating Template-Excel sheet below to get you going when you subscribe below). After a few months of using spreadsheets, you'll quickly understand your time matters so you seek out software that will speed up the estimate process so you don't have to work 16-hour days. Below is a list of the leading software types with their pros and cons..

Spreadsheets – Whether it's Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, a well-built spreadsheet will suffice until it doesn't. So many estimators put many hours into building their spreadsheets and get so attached to them it can be a detriment to a company. The cost of inaction in a competitive market is very real and in this case, a non-step towards a professional level estimate software will cost a company hundreds of hours which = 10,000's of $$ per year in production.

Pros

• Cheap
• Easy to use if setup right

Cons

• clunky
• everything is manual entry= ⏰ = 💰
• accuracy is 100% reliant on the Estimators input
• the bigger the job the lower the accuracy

Entry-level Professional Software – These are "White Labeled" software (Glorified Excel type Sheets) that some wholesalers like to offer or management software companies so they can upsell you on the bigger ticket items. 

Pros

• Less expensive than Professional level software
• Sometimes link to basic wholesaler pricing
• Estimates become more detailed than manual or spreadsheet methods

Cons

• Higher learning curve
• clunky
• accuracy is 100% reliant on the Estimators input
• everything is still manual entry= ⏰ = 💰

Professional Software –This is where the Pro hangs out. Backed with material databases, Labor Units linked to every material piece, the areas for all jobs costs and a workflow that optimizes accuracy and time.

Pros

• High Accuracy based estimator input and pre-loaded inputs
• Great Return on investment- ROI
• Lower Cost of Inaction- COI
• More automation
• Quicker estimates
• Detailed breakouts

Cons

• Training costs are high
• The learning curve is high
• Annual Subscription costs are high
• Slow to change ( most are using 90's tech )
• OCR take-off is hit or miss on accuracy (again old imaging tech)

AiE, AI-Assisted Full Suite Cloudbase Software– Well of course we want to take a minute and talk about our software. We took the best features of the top Professional level software, stripped out the over-engineered parts and added actual AI models (others say they use AI and don't) to introduce into the market the FASTEST most ACCURATE software available that won't break the bank.