# Estimating Software



## PatsGoTheDist92 (Oct 24, 2017)

Hi All,

I primarily do landscape construction, lawn maintenance and other grounds maintenance

I need to find a reliable (and affordable) bidding software that will get my quotes as accurate as possible, and have all the necessary formulas and variables built in.

Also, I have been using a free bidding website (mainly just residential) called "Homewyse" to determine quotes. However, I would like feedback from anyone who may be familiar with this site as to whether or not it is reliable.

As always, I appreciate the feedback


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## Bull Trout (Dec 6, 2016)

Why do you keep looking for someone else to do your bids for you? Material x something on the insurance post and a free internet site on this one, a good way to go broke, you need to know your costs and bid accordingly


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## TheConstruct (Dec 8, 2017)

I'm fairly new to estimating myself but have found using excel to create detailed breakdowns to be invaluable. I'd suggest playing around with creating your own worksheets and entering every detail you can. It's amazing how much you can miss due to inexperience if you don't have a clear imagine of the costs involved. 

It's time consuming right now but I've been trying to break down labour estimates into specific tasks as opposed to projects as a whole and its quite eye opening how much I've undercut myself in the past by not being thorough enough and being overly optimistic about how jobs will go. 

I suspect the more I do this, the more of a data base I'll create for myself to reference for future jobs. 
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I don't actually use excel to draw up estimates, just to organize all the data I need to create an informed one. 
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Its also essential that you figure out how much your overhead is and factor that in. Again, using excel to break down things like insurance, licensing, accounting, fuel etc. The more info you enter the more you'll create a visual road map to get your numbers sorted out.


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## wattsittoyou (May 13, 2018)

I've been using FieldPulse for just about everything lately. I used to use Google Sheets but it's nice just being able to actually use it on my phone without the headache and be able to tweak the invoice items I set up instead of having to figure out the formulas for everything.


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## WehnerR&R (Mar 10, 2019)

wattsittoyou said:


> I've been using FieldPulse for just about everything lately. I used to use Google Sheets but it's nice just being able to actually use it on my phone without the headache and be able to tweak the invoice items I set up instead of having to figure out the formulas for everything.


Are you still using FieldPulse? This is one of the estimate/invoice generating apps that I have been looking into. Do you like it? have you had any difficulty accepting payment through the app?


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## Fishindude (Aug 15, 2017)

If I didn't want to spend the cash on good estimating software, I'd simply build myself a spreadsheet on Excel to do estimates on. If you don't know how to use Excel, pay someone to teach you how to use it.

Prior to computers we had pretty slick paper graph sheets that worked just fine.


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## theotherone (Mar 30, 2019)

I've heard good feedback on Fieldpulse as well. One app for almost everything, payments included. CoConstruct, although from what I understand not ideal if you mostly deal with commercial work. There are also online tools like this website, but I'm assuming you want it to have the convenience of an app. A lot of people I know also use Joist.


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