I've always used a spreadsheet I've developed for this purpose, but as I've added more and more functionality to it, it's starting to outgrow Excel. It basically allows me to enter a list of prices from various vendors for various materials on one sheet, tallies of material quantities for various components of the project on another, and then uses lots of VLOOKUP() and OFFSET() to combine the data into total costs, which are then summarized with PivotTables. When it works, it works wonderfully, but as I've added more features the spreadsheet has gotten more complex, and I have to spend more and more time repairing havoc wreaked by Excel's 'help', which is itself grows more insidious as complexity increases. There are also intrinsic limits to how you can interact with data in Excel--particularly via PivotTables--that make implementing certain desired functions kludge-y or downright impossible.
So I'm wondering what other solutions are out there. I see lots of software aimed at large construction projects, but haven't located much else yet. Anyone have any nifty software solutions to recommend? Or do you do it by hand or in simpler spreadsheets?
So I'm wondering what other solutions are out there. I see lots of software aimed at large construction projects, but haven't located much else yet. Anyone have any nifty software solutions to recommend? Or do you do it by hand or in simpler spreadsheets?