The Escalation routine in HeavyBid is an excellent module that I use frequently. You do need to be careful however on what you do with the escalated amount. Now if you just leave it in the estimate and it escalates the costs then the escalated amount will be marked up and all applicable addons applied. But lets say the client asks you to give the escalated dollars as a separate line item. First I give it careful thought on what the client wants it for and frankly would ask them. If they come back three years later saying inflation using some benchmark was less than projected they could ask for a refund. So obviously give them as little as possible on the listed line. But if they are going look at the base bid to judge who will get the project, burying a lot of escalation dollars back into the base bid could put you out of the running.  If I want to get total escalated costs I usually go to the Check Estimate, first screen.

The above escalated amount does not have markup applied to the escalated dollars and obviously you want to profit from the escalation also. If I want that cost out of the estimate I go back to the Escalation routine and take out the escalation. Some contractors then put the total escalation cost as a one line cost in the Indirects. If I want to see the difference in the total bid including markup and maybe addons then run a summary with the escalation turned on and run one with it turned off and take the difference. The delta represents the escalated costs and also the markup and addons on these costs.  Using the estimate where I got the escalated costs of $250,740 (see screen shot above) the difference was $305,780.

Summary – clarify when someone asks how much is the escalated amount what total they are referring to.