Bids, Estimates, and Accounting Software

porkchop

Well-Known Member
I need some help from those out there running a scene shop or another type of business where you're bidding on and building large elements for external customers. We've been running for years using a variety of Excel spreadsheets and it's become obvious that these are a little too easy to modify and too spread out. Also the fact that they are completely disconnected means that there is a lot of double work being done to reconcile the accounts afterwards. I'm finding a huge variety of construction estimating software out there and each has bits and pieces that I like, but nothing seems to be easily adaptable to what we do. So the question is who's using bid and estimate software that they like?

What I'm looking for:
  • Itemized bids referencing stored material prices for basic stuff like 3/4" ply.
  • The ability to create custom line items easily.
  • Some logical way to separate labor hours (eg. welding time vs carpentry time for a riser with metal framing).
  • The ability to choose what of those itemized elements are shown to the customer when I send them the bid.
  • The ability to charge time and materials back to that job as the work is being completed.
  • A reasonable ability to reconcile estimated and actual costs so I can handle overruns as easily as possible.
  • The ability to manually enter in labor hours.
  • Bonus points for Quickbooks integration.
What I'm not looking for:
  • Takeoff software where I scale and draw on the plans.
  • Customer management integration.
  • A million construction based categories for bid line items that I will never use.
  • A lot of features and tabs for tracking and communicating with subcontractors and other trades.
  • A mobile app.
There is some budget for the right software, but thousands per year per seat or a contract with multi-year commitment probably wouldn't work for us. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
Have you taken a look at Quote Werks? Currently we are using Quickbooks, Excel, and our rental management software. I do keep looking at Quote Werks as it looks like it would be a good solution for keeping everything organized and speeding up the quoting process. It does seem more tailored to the AV and IT industry but they do list a wide range of industries including display and exhibits.

https://www.quotewerks.com/qwvswordexcel.asp
 
Workflowmax https://www.workflowmax.com/ is what we use. It allows itemized or lump sum in the quotation and lead generation side of the software and then if accepted we can turn it into a project tracking actual costs and labor with a invoicing feature that can be imported into its partner accounting system.
 

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