7 Ways Estimating Software Can Boost Your Productivity and Profits

When it comes to making estimates, precision is key - but speed is essential as well. You don’t want to shoot from the hip when calculating construction job costs, and determining timelines and materials needed can be a time consuming process that shouldn’t be rushed. It’s all too easy to make inaccurate calculations that can cause expensive delays, impact your cash flow, and damage your company’s reputation. 

So, how can you make your job cost calculations as accurate as possible without wasting valuable time crunching numbers over and over again? Contractor estimate software can help. Here are seven ways that estimating software can boost your company’s productivity and profits.

1.) Improved Accuracy and Consistency

Without a standardized, consistent estimating process, each member of your team might approach estimates and proposals slightly differently. And even if your team has a set process, each team member brings their own individual judgment, experiences, and biases to the table that can offset the accuracy of your estimates.

Estimating software allows you to establish consistent and accurate company processes for creating estimates. When you use estimating software, you’ll have easy access to precise, finely-calibrated lists of line items your team needs to complete a job — no ambiguity or inaccuracies. From there, you can provide your clients with more accurate timelines and cost estimates, which is a win-win for both your business and your clients.

Using estimation software to create estimates and proposals also offers cash flow benefits. With more accurate estimates, you can look at your backlog and estimate your cash flow with greater precision and confidence. When the necessary job details aren’t fuzzy, or downright inaccurate, your company can more effectively plan for future projects.

2.) Better Client Relationships

Another area that estimating software can help is your client relationships. Vague, imprecise estimates can create misunderstandings for your clients about a job’s budget, timeline, and required labor. And, to state the obvious, these kinds of misunderstandings don’t exactly foster strong client relationships.

The more specific and accurate your estimates are, the less chances there are for misunderstandings and miscommunication with clients. Accurate estimates can be notoriously difficult to create manually. But with estimating software, you can create professionally accurate estimates — without the headaches and damage control.

Another way estimating software can help your client relationships is its ability to make polished and professional estimates and proposals. Creating a polished and professional estimate — one that’s easy to read and understand and is visually appealing — is far easier with software than when doing so manually. And, the more polished, professional, and accurate your estimates are, the better impression you’ll give your clients.

A useful feature of estimating software is automation, which takes much of the tedium and guesswork out of creating estimates. Some estimating software allows you to automatically include your terms and conditions on estimates and proposals, which helps reduce miscommunication. And some software takes the legwork out of timing your follow-up emails, sending automated follow-up emails to your clients. 

Increased communication between you and your clients, without the added manual work — obviously, a win-win.

3.) Better Communication With Your Team

Communication is a critical component of running a successful business, both for your clients and your team. And keeping your team informed and up-to-date about the details of a job is essential.

Information gaps or miscommunications among your team can quickly cause confusion about what needs to be done, by when, and by whom. Not only is this inefficient, but it can throw an entire job off-course (which, needless to say, isn’t great for business).

But estimating software helps improve your team communication and eliminate unnecessary headaches. Look for the kind of software that enables your team to view proposals and project details, track job progress, and view and sort their assigned tasks. This helps keep everyone on the same page and keeps your jobs on-schedule.

These software features are not only beneficial to your team, but also for customer satisfaction and retention. When your team’s day-to-day work is easier, you can all focus on doing what you do best.

4.) Faster Project Completion

An inaccurate estimate can create a domino effect of problems, leaving your project vulnerable to delayed project completion, frustrated team members, and dissatisfied clients.

For example, if your team underestimates the amount of tile flooring required for a job, you may find yourselves waiting days, or even weeks, for a new order to arrive before work can resume. Inaccurate estimates can also create misunderstandings or disputes with clients, grinding work to a halt and hurting your company’s reputation.

Estimating software is an easy way to bypass many of these challenges and keep jobs on-schedule. Although delays may happen for any number of reasons, detailed estimates help insulate your team from avoidable miscalculations that can set the job back.

5.) Less Administrative Work

Let’s say you can create impeccably accurate estimates without using software. Sure, that’s impressive. But manually making estimates, writing follow-up emails, having back-and-forth discussions with your team about the schedule, calculating margins, and keeping track of costs takes up a lot of time and energy. If it can be avoided, is it really worth doing manually?

Estimation software can automate these processes, making your life easier. If you use an estimating software — with an invoice and estimate generator, for example — you’ll be able to work more efficiently and direct more energy toward growing your business.

6.) Better Analytics

Another area of business that estimating software can improve is analytics. Analyzing your business data can be time-consuming, and doing so manually leaves you vulnerable to errors and can lead to poor planning.

Estimating software can help keep track of all your historical data in one place, making it easier to leverage and create more accurate estimates. With these features, you can also regularly compare your estimates with actual costs, helping you better identify where to make changes. You may think you’re only underestimating projects every once in a while - but software can show you the true picture and help you identify common patterns and trends.

For example, with estimation software, you can easily track sales won, profitability, team member statistics, sales by source, and more, all in just a few clicks.

7.) Competitive Advantages

As outlined above, using estimation software offers a host of advantages for your business — more accurate and polished estimates, better team communication, accessible project details, and more. And cumulatively, all of these benefits make your business even more of a competitive option for potential clients.

If your company has a reputation for accurate estimates, efficiency, good communication, and effective planning, you can gain a considerable edge over your competitors, especially if they’re using handwritten estimates and other manual processes.

Estimate Rocket can boost your profits and productivity.

Using estimating software can yield positive results for your business, like more accurate estimates, good team communication, and on-time project completion can yield even more positive results, like earning more customers and performing better than your competitors.

And some software, like Estimate Rocket, offers your business more than just accurate estimates. In addition to estimating and invoicing software, Estimate Rocket is also a project management software, CRM, and more, all in one user-friendly platform.