CONTENDER provides rapid accurate estimating from specifications and drawings, and pricing bills of quantities.
Create accurate estimates from specifications and drawings
Adding items from the library
Supplied with New Work and Alterations and Repairs Cost libraries covering more than 14,000 items, with detailed specifications and full buildup of Labour, Material and Plant detail. Find items in a fraction of the time of other competing systems with a familiar Windows Explorer style library navigator. Copy the items to the project; CONTENDERs smart copy will copy the item(s) with all the detailed resources and cost calculations to the project. Add the quantity measurement.
Copy and paste from another estimates
Saved more time borrowing from your previous work by pasting appropriate sections from previous estimates. Releaser the quantity and adjust the cost make up where necessary.
Measured Rates
When a measured rates is copied from the library, or a previous project, it is copied complete with a copy of the resources and cost calculations that are stored within the project. The measured rate dialog shows all resources contained within the item making it easy to add, edit or delete resources.
To change the type of slate or tile simply drag the selected resource from the window on the right into the item resource list of the measured rates. CONTENDER even displays where you need to drop it so you don't get lost.
The cost make up is instantly accessible, no codes to enter, no buttons to press. Double-click on a mortar mix and sand, cement, lime, labour and a mixer will be displayed. Click on cement and the full details of purchasing the item is shown.
Dealing with PC sums and subcontract costs is just as easy. Simply enter the rate into the appropriate field.
Direct access to resources
CONTENDER provides direct access to both job and library resources. Review your material costs on the project, obtaining quotes where necessary. Enter your revised material costs. Where a price is relevant for future projects click on the 'Both button' and CONTENDER will update the project and library. Whenever you make any change to the cost makeup CONTENDER automatically records the date.
CONTENDER is practical
We live in a real-world, sometimes lack time or information means it is more realistic to simply make a cost allowance against an item rather than attempt a detailed make up, on other occasions we will want a detailed composite item. CONTENDER is just as happy with either approach.
Effective preliminaries. Where practical, preliminaries are dealt with openly and displayed as standard items within the bill. However this is not always practical or politic, so CONTENDER also has a hidden preliminaries worksheet. The preliminaries worksheets resultant value, is then either automatically spread across all visible items within the bill or applied to a specific item.
Flexible profit calculations. Play with profit calculations to suit your requirements. Estimate net, or with a simple percentage, or with different percentages applied to labour material plant and subcontract costs. At any time you can change your mind and make adjustments.
Today most bills of quantities are created by computer. CONTENDER has a comprehensive range of visual import tools to import bill for priceing. Bills can be imported from C.I.T.E (Construction Industry Trading Electronically), ASCII, RTF, Microsoft Word, RTF, and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
Estimators should always try in the first instance to obtaining a bill on disk. If this is not possible you can create one the above files using a scanner and OCR software. This is more work than importing the file directly, but much less work than retyping!
Pricing an imported bill
The cost able items within an imported bill default to being simple cost items, so that it easy to assign Labour, Material, Plant, Subcontract or PC sums costs.
Printout any parts of the bill you wish to subcontract. You can do this with conventional paper reports, but you can also create any report as an Excel spreadsheet that may be more convenient for your subcontractor to price.
When you require a measured rate, browse the library for the nearest equivalent item. Drag and drop the library item on to the bill item, CONTENDER will transfer all the resource and cost calculations to the project. Edit and fine-tune the item where necessary.