Platform / 03 Estimating
Priced by your own recipes.
Quantities flow from the takeoff into the cost recipes you build once (crews, production rates, materials, equipment and trucking), with margin on every line.
01 · Your price book
Set your costs once. Every bid copies from it.
One catalog for every cost
Labor, materials, equipment, trucking, subs, overhead and misc in one library every estimate copies from.
Crews, people and burden
Price a crew as one rate or its people: wage, burden, overtime, workday length and licences.
Prevailing-wage rate sets
Give people a second wage, like prevailing wage, and switch a whole estimate to it.
Materials that buy like you do
Specs and sizes, density for tons from depth, waste, pack sizes, rounding, tax class and SKU.
Vendor prices and history
Each supplier’s price with quantity breaks and dates, a preferred supplier and a price-history chart.
Equipment and fleet
Owned or rented, by the hour, day or flat, with fuel. Linked to the real trucks you dispatch.
Trucking and hauling order
Per hour, day, ton or load, with mileage bands. Your own trucks go first, then brokers in order.
Subs, overhead and misc
Subs priced ten ways with markup; overhead per day, hour or percentage; dump fees and permits auto-added.
Vendor and sub directory
Suppliers, rental houses and subs on a map, with contacts, categories and every price they’ve quoted.
Cost codes
Your job-cost codes on services and materials, with uncoded lines flagged on the estimate.
Spec sheets and mix designs
Attach MSDS, spec sheets and mix designs to materials and services, ready for the proposal.
02 · Services that price themselves
Build “2-inch overlay” once. Reuse it on every bid.
Five-step service builder
Identity and takeoff link, cost recipe, proposal wording, pricing and subservices. No code.
Billed from the takeoff
Point a service at a measured quantity and it fills itself in, with a warning if an area would count twice.
No-code recipe math
Tons from depth, coverage factors, percent of another material, one per X, per crew day and more.
Types and options
Depth, finish, coats: each combination becomes its own priced type, with its own proposal wording.
Field questions
Ask the salesperson questions on the takeoff. Answers become notes on the line, never a price change.
Production rates
SY a day, tons an hour, LF a day: crew hours and job days work themselves out.
Recipe, unit or cost-plus
Price from the recipe with markup or margin, or per unit with volume price breaks.
Minimum charges
Minimums per service, per type and per job, or one shared minimum per service.
Subservices and bundles
Group subservices under a parent so the customer sees one line, and ask before optional ones are added.
Automatic add-on rules
Put a service on every estimate, remind estimators about add-ons on big jobs, and auto-size followers.
Variables and lookup tables
Reusable inputs, formulas, lookup tables and a library of coverage rates like “1 gal per 80 SF”.
Price lists
Columns for counties, cities or customer tiers. Paste the grid from Excel and pick one per estimate.
Takeoff item catalog
One list of everything you measure (25 standard paving items plus your own), feeding services directly.
Starter service library
Install ten common paving services in a click: units, takeoff links and wording, with your own costs.
Bids that don’t move
Estimates keep their prices when the catalog changes; a banner shows the difference and updates on request.
03 · Takeoff to bid
Measured on the map. Priced on the sheet.
Services panel on the takeoff
On the map, your services show what was measured. Apply puts them on the estimate.
Auto-add measured services
Optionally, everything the takeoff measured lands on the estimate when the draft opens.
Site-walk quantities
Work logged on the site assessment shows in a bar with one-click Add to estimate.
Takeoff changes, reviewed
A changed takeoff becomes a new quantity version you accept or reject, never a silent overwrite.
Takeoff preview beside the sheet
Open the map next to the estimate; point at a line and its measured shapes light up.
Nothing left off
Painted lines and marks with no type are flagged, so nothing measured is missed on the bid.
Areas and phases
Split one bid into areas or phases, each fed by a takeoff, a site walk or typed quantities.
Estimate templates
Save a finished estimate as a template and start new jobs from it, or swap a draft onto another.
Live estimates board
Every open bid on a map with the pipeline total and average bid, sorted by price or distance from your yard.
Irrigation zone quantities
Heads and lateral pipe per zone from irrigation plans, ready to bill.
04 · Pricing control
Type the number you want. The bid re-solves.
Spreadsheet-style estimate
Every service with its crew, equipment, material, trucking and sub lines: quantity, rate, cost, margin and price.
Margin or markup
Flip the sheet between margin and markup. The dollars stay the same.
Type the number you want
Type over total cost, price, margin or overhead in the footer and every line rescales to hit it.
Targets, group discounts, bulk margin
Set a service’s target price, discount a group, set one margin for a service or hold a line at cost.
Plugs and job overhead
Bid-day adds and cuts with a reason, and itemized or percentage job overhead spread into every service.
Mobilization drive time
Drive hours from your shop to the job, route miles for trucking and a truck-cycle calculator.
Bonds
Percent, fixed or tiered bonds, charged to one service or spread across the bid.
Night and weekend premium
One percentage on the base bid, shown as its own proposal line.
Sales tax by location
Tax areas matched to the job address, tax-exempt jobs, several bid taxes and material tax in cost.
Indirect costs by category
Charges like “3% of labor and equipment”, with how the customer pays and how it spreads.
Options and self-perform vs sub
Mark services optional, and keep a sub comparison line you can swap in with one click.
Metrics you bid by
Cost and price per SF, SY and ton, profit per day, job days, labor hours, or your own formulas.
Rounding that reconciles
Round the proposal to $1, $5, $25 or $100 and service prices still add up to the total exactly.
Undo and redo
Ctrl+Z your own changes on the estimate.
05 · Vendors & spreadsheets
Supplier prices without phone tag. And your Excel, still working.
Vendor quote requests
Send lines to vendors from your own mailbox; they price each item on a no-login link and attach their bid.
Quote leveling
Items down the side, vendors across, missing and outlier prices flagged. One click puts a price on the bid.
Partner pricing link
Send a sub an expiring link to fill in unit costs; review the price impact before applying your markup.
Excel round-trip
Export the estimate to Excel and import changes back, with every change previewed first.
Your catalog as a spreadsheet
See and edit the whole catalog as a sheet, or download it as a plain-English workbook.
Spreadsheet import
Import rates from a template, your old estimating software’s export or any name/unit/cost sheet.
Workbook estimator
Drop in your own estimating workbook: TruTec recalculates every formula, checks it against your file and prices it from the takeoff.
Sub and vendor agreements
Upload your subcontract once; subs fill it in and sign on a link and upload their insurance certificate.
06 · After the bid
From the estimate, straight into the rest of the job.
One click to the proposal
Next: Proposal hides unused items, flags wording blanks and sends the priced services into a branded proposal.
Priced change orders
Price extra work on the same sheet; the customer signs the change order and that approves it.
Work orders from the bid
A one-page production sheet built from the estimate, with tons computed and a PDF for the crew.
Who sees prices
One permission hides costs and prices from a role everywhere: estimates, jobs, schedule and reports.
Everything in Estimating
62 things Estimating does. All on the same record as the rest of the job.
Your price book
- One catalog for every cost
- Crews, people and burden
- Prevailing-wage rate sets
- Materials that buy like you do
- Vendor prices and history
- Equipment and fleet
- Trucking and hauling order
- Subs, overhead and misc
- Vendor and sub directory
- Cost codes
- Spec sheets and mix designs
Services that price themselves
- Five-step service builder
- Billed from the takeoff
- No-code recipe math
- Types and options
- Field questions
- Production rates
- Recipe, unit or cost-plus
- Minimum charges
- Subservices and bundles
- Automatic add-on rules
- Variables and lookup tables
- Price lists
- Takeoff item catalog
- Starter service library
- Bids that don’t move
Takeoff to bid
- Services panel on the takeoff
- Auto-add measured services
- Site-walk quantities
- Takeoff changes, reviewed
- Takeoff preview beside the sheet
- Nothing left off
- Areas and phases
- Estimate templates
- Live estimates board
- Irrigation zone quantities
Pricing control
- Spreadsheet-style estimate
- Margin or markup
- Type the number you want
- Targets, group discounts, bulk margin
- Plugs and job overhead
- Mobilization drive time
- Bonds
- Night and weekend premium
- Sales tax by location
- Indirect costs by category
- Options and self-perform vs sub
- Metrics you bid by
- Rounding that reconciles
- Undo and redo
Vendors & spreadsheets
- Vendor quote requests
- Quote leveling
- Partner pricing link
- Excel round-trip
- Your catalog as a spreadsheet
- Spreadsheet import
- Workbook estimator
- Sub and vendor agreements
After the bid
- One click to the proposal
- Priced change orders
- Work orders from the bid
- Who sees prices
One platform