Changes to Esti-mate for Version 5
Whilst every effort has been made to make this upgrade as safe and easy as possible, the nature of computers is always to go wrong at the most awkward time and in the worst possible way. Therefore, BEFORE installing the Upgrade programs, please ensure that you have a secure backup of your existing Estimate and Contract files by carrying out one of the following operations:-
- Copy the entire C:\Estimate directory and all sub-directories to another location on your hard drive(s), network or CD.
- Backup all Estimates and Contracts to floppy disk from within the existing Estimating and Valuations programs.
If you are not sure of this process, please contact the Esti-mate help desk on 01993 708257.
If you are currently licensed for more modules that Estimating then you must upgrade each of the programs at the same time. Failure to do this WILL result in the loss of your Estimate Register.
Version 5 of Esti-mate includes all the incremental bug fixes and changes previously posted on the web-site for supported users (see the "Support" area of the website for details) plus the following changes.
General
- Licensing model changed to allow new features/modules to be available individually and to allow concurrent usage on network systems. All modules may now be licensed from within the main modules.*
- The CD system for backing up and restoring now recognises most CD writers.
- Comma separators have been added when display or printing monetary values.
- Miscellaneous 1 & 2 Resource Types may be renamed as required.
* This requires that existing systems will need to be re-licensed within 10 days of upgrading.
Estimating
- Locates the last Estimate used when opening the Estimate Register.
- The side menu of the Estimate Register may now be re-sized.
- Dimensions system cursor positioning changed to make take-off easier.
- Long notes (1000 characters) added to each Dimension set.
- Rounding may now be set from the Dimensions screen.
- Rounding of Items is now automatic for all Items when recalculating the Estimate. Previously, only Items added/changed after setting the rounding would be affected.
- Allocation/analysis of Item Groups changed to allow multi-level groups for Project Management system compatibility. The Menu items have been re-named as PM/Analysis Groups.
- PM/Analysis Groups facility added to the Library Menu. The standard groups are arranged into types to allow for importing into different types of job.
- Percentage of Cost and Trading discount columns added to the Profit and Estimate Totals screen.
- Display/edit of Resources by Buying Quantities/Rates added to the Reprice Resources screen.
- Printing of Resources now includes options to use Buying Quantities.
- Start Page field added to the Section details to allow page numbering to begin at the value entered.
- When opening the Estimate or when returning from the Find Menu, the position in the Estimate is set to the last Item that has been accessed.
- The Auto-menu is properly closed when exiting the Estimate.
- Upgrade all Estimates feature added to the Main Screen Utilities Menu.
Notes:-
The auto upgrade feature opens each Estimate in turn and upgrades if required and may take some time if there are a large number of Estimates in the Register. Running the Upgrade All Estimates will not affect previously upgraded Estimates and running this more than once will do no harm. If this feature is not used, each Estimate will be upgraded when it is opened normally.
Valuations
There are a number of new and revised features within the Valuations Module as detailed below:-
PC Sums/Nominated Subcontractors
- Displays the PC Sums Items within the job and allows changes to be made to the original PC values. This feature also allows the To Date payment value to be entered.
- Subcontract Trades and Company names may be recorded against the PC Sum, even if they were not entered at Estimate stage.
- Discounts may be taken, either by adding a percentage to the amount claimed from the Client, or by deducting a percentage from the amount paid to the subcontractor.
Provisional Sums Items
- Allows Provisional Sums to be re-measured by creating and measuring a list of work Items, similar to the Variations.
Preliminaries Items
- Allows Preliminaries Items to be set to be either fixed or time-based.
- Measurement of fixed Preliminaries is by Quantity to Date.
- Measurement of time-based Preliminaries is automatic, based on the number of weeks since the start date for the Contract.
Summary Valuations
- The Summary Valuation allows Items within the Contract to be allocated to user-defined groups and then the progress of the work entered as a percentage complete for each group.
- Allocation screen is available from the Utilities menu and allocations may be changed at any time within the life of the Contract.
- The main (B of Q) display of quantities to date is automatically updated.
- Quantities entered on the main screen automatically update the Summary.
- Access to the Variations, PC Sums, Provisional Sums and Preliminaries is provided to allow the measurement to be prepared from a single screen.
Internal Valuation/Budgets
- Internal and Client quantities may be recorded against each Item and the facility displays the under/over measures by Item, Section and across the Contract.
- Valuation B of Q may be printed using either Client or Internal quantities.
- The Contract Costs, based on the current Resource prices, are compared against the original estimated costs.
- The build-ups for Items may be changed to reflect the way the work is to be carried out.
- Subcontractors may be allocated using the same facilities as within Estimating.
- Subcontractor Enquiries are available from the Estimate and may be used as the basis for re-enquiring and subsequent update of the current Costs.
- Resource prices may be changed in the same way as within the Estimate, using the Reprice Resources utility and the Materials Enquiry module.
- The original Item build-ups are retained for comparison.
- Changes to the Costs are applied to all subsequent Valuations, and previous values are accumulated and fixed at each Valuation, preventing the previous values from changing when current costs are updated.
- Analysis provided to track original against revised Budgets.
- Print routines available to both Quantity and Cost displays and to print the B of Q with current costs.
Dayworks
- Resources used on Dayworks sheets now selected from Job or Library Resources.
- Time-sheets may be recorded for Subcontractors.
- Internal Quantities/Values may now be recorded.
- Simplified Adjustments and Adjustments applied to Labour, Plant and Subcontractors.
Materials on Site
- Buying Units/Rates used where stated.
- Rates may be uplifted by a percentage for all Resources in the list. This may be reversed by setting all resources to their buying rates.
- Internal Quantities may be recorded.
Cost/Value Reconciliation
- Changed to reflect the costs from the Internal Valuation.
- Cost Book values are displayed in Cost Code groups, and may be imported from accounting systems using .CSV files.
- Accruals may be recorded for each Cost Code.
- Costs may be exported to a .CSV file for transfer into accounting systems or spreadsheets for further manipulation.
- Displays values original and current budgets for the entire contract and for the work completed to date.
Changes/additions to Analyses
- Final Account forecast now includes values for remeasured provisional sums and for adjustments to PC Sums.
- Cost/Value to Complete displays the amount to complete the work by either Value (at Client Rates) or Cost (from Internal Budgets).
- Valuation/Budget Summary analyses the Contract by Resource types. The following displays are available:-
Previous, To Date and Total values by Client quantities.
Previous, To Date and Total values by Internal quantities.
Budget revisions.
Cost to Complete.
- PM/Analysis Group summary displays the values, by Resource Types, for the allocated PM/Analysis groups.
- Resource Usage displays the value of resources used to date, based on the Internal quantities and current Costs.
Changes/additions to printed Reports
- All new/revised analyses have corresponding reports from their on-screen display.
- Under/Over measure summary report moved to the Internal Valuation/Budget.
- Total Contract by Percentage report prints the B of Q with the percentage complete, the estimated value and value to date for each Item.
Other areas
- The side menu of the Contract Register may now be re-sized.
- Main screen display now shows values for Variations, Dayworks and Materials on Site values. Clicking on these values opens their corresponding update screens.
- Variations may now be printed individually or all Variations at one time.
- PM/Analysis Groups may be allocated from the Update Menu.
- Dimensions cursor handling changed to same as for Estimating.
- Printing Variations now has choice for current Variation or All Variations.
Library Maintenance Module
- New utility to Allocate Resources to Groups.
- New utility to import Activities from another Library.
Subcontractor Comparisons Module
- List added to Subcontractor (and Supplier) detail screen that allows any number of user-defined fields (such as Accounting or performance details) to be recorded for each Subcontractor.
- Note added to "Own Rate" screen to warn of Resources being over-written when updating the estimate with S/C rates.
- New analysis which displays and prints a summary of all the Trades used within an Estimate.
- Tick added to list of trades, when selecting a trade for the Comparison, indicates those trades that have already been allocated top a Subcontractor.
