Written guides
Change orders, job costing, retainage, takeoffs and getting paid. Written from the same jobs the software came out of, and written to be useful with our product removed from them.
Most takeoff services quote by email and bill by the project. Here is what the published prices actually are, what the fine print adds, and how to compare them.
Read the guideThe right takeoff service for a subcontractor is not the one with the biggest client list. It is the one you can order from on a Tuesday night, at a price you saw first, and have back by Thursday. Eight services, scored on the same five tests.
Read the guideInsulation is the trade where the drawings say the least. A good estimating service knows that, and asks you where the thermal boundary falls before it measures a wall.
Read the guideConcrete measures three ways and bills a fourth. An estimating service that gives you one number has not finished the job.
Read the guideDrywall is measured in square feet and bought in boards. A service that stops at the square feet leaves the ordering to you.
Read the guideA roof plan shows the footprint. The pitch turns it into the surface you actually cover, and that conversion is where a roofing takeoff is won or lost.
Read the guideEstimating services are built for the company that sends twenty sets a month. Here is how to buy one when you send three.
Read the guideA takeoff is the quantities. An estimate is the quantities with prices beside them. People use the words interchangeably and then order the wrong one.
Read the guideA takeoff service sells you the measuring step and nothing else. Knowing that is most of knowing how to buy one well.
Read the guideMost change-order money is not lost in a negotiation. It is lost because the work got built before anybody wrote it down.
Read the guideA profit and loss statement tells you the company made money last quarter. It cannot tell you which jobs paid for the ones that did not.
Read the guideRetainage is the largest interest-free loan most subcontractors make, and the one they are least likely to have on a list anywhere.
Read the guideThe subs who get paid fastest are not the most aggressive. They are the ones whose paperwork gives nobody a reason to wait.
Read the guideA digital takeoff is not more accurate than a hand takeoff by default. It is faster, which means a mistake reaches a customer sooner.
Read the guideMost software evaluations are decided by the demo. Most software failures are decided by things a demo never shows you.
Read the guideA company that runs two trades is really two businesses sharing an owner, an office and a bank account. Almost no software is built on that assumption, and the second trade is the one that pays for it.
Read the guideWalkthroughs
The same subjects, shown on screen: every image captured from the product running, not a mock-up.
Case studies
Deployments described in full, including the parts that were broken before.
Twenty minutes on your own pipeline, with whoever on your team would actually use it.
