We wrote our bid program in house and I am in the process of re-writing it again. Out of the box programs didn't give us the flexibility we needed. Every couple of years it needs to be torn down and rebuilt as equipment options and client expectations change.
Regardless of the program it is important to identify your costs (materials, labor & burden, design, permits, port-a-potties, etc) and account for them as such. This reduces artificially high margins that act as contingencies resulting in more accurate job costing and the ability to refine your pricing structure.
PoolDraw can be customized to capture specific dimensions and will export them to Excel - but that's the easy part.The first step in setting up a costing program is to analysis your construction job, identify all your costs and create a detailed pricebook - many pool builders have their costs in their head or will ballpark a phase - there are fixed costs and there are variable costs.Once this is done, have an Excel spread sheet set up to price out the variables - the complicated and time consuming part of pricing is setting up the process; once it has been done, it will be in place forever. PGN member Ben Tipton mentions pricing his pool with PoolDraw exports in a comment on the PoolDraw blog entry posted 2/3/09. Your initial investment in the set-up is offset by time saved, efficiency and accuracy in job pricing.
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Regardless of the program it is important to identify your costs (materials, labor & burden, design, permits, port-a-potties, etc) and account for them as such. This reduces artificially high margins that act as contingencies resulting in more accurate job costing and the ability to refine your pricing structure.