Smart Contractor allows you to create job estimates by copying from other estimates, or from templates. You can create and use any number of estimate templates.
Estimate templates are like any other job estimate, and you create it the same way you create any other job. See the "How Do I... Enter A New Job?" topic for information on how to create a job.
When you create a template estimate, you may want to check the Template Job check box in the Estimate tab of the Edit Job form. When you do, the program will not calculate and display totals for group items in the Edit Job Estimate form, and it will not calculate and display job totals in the "dashboard" on the main window. The program will run faster when editing the template job, and since it is only a template job, you may not need to see totals for it.
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About Creating Estimate Templates |
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Here is what you need to know in order to create an estimate template. |
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Define Job Phases |
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Job phases are used for three things: Scheduling, Job Costing, and QuickBooks integration. So if you want to be able to do any of these with Smart Contractor (now or in the future), you'll need to set up your list of job phases. Job Phases are used to organize job items into the sequence in which the work must be completed. For example, in painting a large building (where you'll need scaffolding), you need to set up scaffolding before you can do anything else, so "Scaffolding Set Up" would be one job phase. Then you need to do the prep before you can paint. But you may want to break prep into multiple job phases for Power Washing, then "Patching/Caulking", then "Surface Prep", because each of those have to be done in sequence, and you may want to schedule different people to do them. Then comes "Painting", and finally "Scaffolding Take Down". You'll notice that the program comes with a lot of job phases pre-defined, but you can add to that list (go to Setup > Lists > Job Phases). |
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Create A List Of Products |
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While work items define what work needs to be done in a job, "Products" define what specific materials will be used. You don't have to use products when you do estimates in Smart Contractor, but there are many advantages: - You can submit quote requests to vendors for the specific products used in a job. The quote requests are emailed as attachments to the vendors and when the vendor emails it back, you can import the price quotes and update your product costs (with no data entry). - You can update estimated costs for any jobs that use a particular product when you update the cost of the product. - You can track and manage the inventory of materials that you use on jobs. For example, if you stock things like paint rollers, if you track them in inventory, you can estimate and allocate their cost to individual jobs if you track them as inventory item. In order to track them as inventory, they need to be set up as products. |
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Develop An Estimate Template |
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Using estimating templates makes is easy to create new estimates. All you have to do is copy the template to the new job and make the necessary changes. You can create separate templates for each type of job you do (if you do different types of jobs), but your template doesn't have to fit every possible type of job you do because you can easily add to or change a job after you copy it from the template. The breakdown of the estimate template will probably follow the breakdown of your job phases, more or less, but you may want to have more than one job item per each job phase. For example (I'm just guessing here), if you want to track equipment rental for the scaffolding, you would want to add a job item for Scaffolding Rental. This would be an item in the same job phase with another item for "Scaffolding pick up, delivery, assembly". |