Closing Accounts – Caution
There was a fundamental change to the closing account routine that those who use them should be aware of. I am not sure what version this programming revision came about but in the current version of HeavyBid when a summary is run and there are…
Updating Your Master Estimate
Typically companies new to HeavyBid as they are working on estimates find that they have missed setting up certain labor, equipment or crew. During the estimating effort you will most likely add these resources (or revise resource costs) to the current estimate. At the end…
Renumber Bid Item in Tree View
I found another undocumented feature in HeavyBid 2015. In Tree View you can right click on a bid item on the View side of the screen and renumber a bid item on the fly. Nice for when you are for example creating child items and…
Listing of Local Materials/Subs not in System Wide Materials Codebook
Are you inputting the same materials on the fly for every estimate? To increase your efficiency do the following. When your estimate has been completed get a list of the created materials/subs and move them into the system wide codebook. Two ways to do this….
Clean up Spreadsheet Calculations
If you are a regular reader of my blogs you know I like the internal spreadsheet (SpreadSheet Gear) in HeavyBid. But honestly there are a lot of spreadsheets in the list that you will never use such as all the Metric ones (unless you are…
FMI Corporation – Management Training
FMI has been around a long time and they are known for their training courses in leadership development. They have resources for training from maximizing labor productivity (they claim 5-10% of annual field costs in savings), business development and risk management. I see a lot of owners…
Spreadsheet Gear – HeavyBid Internal Spreadsheet
The internal spreadsheet is probably the most under utilized feature in HeavyBid. It is actually a third party software called SpreadsheetGear. It is very “Excel” like and in HeavyBid Version 2015 the version of SpreadsheetGear has been updated to the latest version (2012). Here is…
Trapping Errors – Detect Changes to Activities
In Version 2015 the activity “Unreviewed” box preference is estimate specific (See my previous blog detailing this revision LINK). This is a very significant change since previously it could be changed only for all estimates (system preference). So this is how it can work for…
Tool Preferences V2015-Unreviewed Activity Check Box
Tools>Preferences is an area that many HeavyBid users don’t customize or at least review regularly. If your company has updated Version 2015 now is the time to review all the preferences and at the same time customize options to take advantage of HeavyBid extensive feature…
Why You Need a Test Estimate
What is a Test estimate? It is an estimate that you setup as one of your master estimates to create estimates in order to test HCSS routines and see how they work. I always admonish users not to treat HeavyBid as a Black Box where they…
HeavyBid – Basics and Beyond is devoted to everything HCSS HeavyBid and estimating. Updated regularly with helpful insights and tools of the trade, this blog is designed to make your estimating easier and more successful.
