Managing HeavyBid Part 2 – Tools>Preferences
Any software has settings and it is critical for the management of HeavyBid to understand the underlying settings and what can be changed to better manage HeavyBid. For example, automatic backups can be stored in one folder while the manual backup in another. HeavyBid puts…
Vendor Business Contact System – Huge!
If there is one module that is often ignored in HeavyBid setup it is the Vendor Contact System. A little quirky (where is the save button!) and I think it needs some updating but the benefits are huge in getting this setup and setup correctly….
Resources in a Crew-Why?
One setting that you want to set in HeavyBid is found in Tools>Preferences>System Preferences?>Setup. It is the option to “Do not prompt for material resources to be added to crews”. This should really be checked as a default setting by HCSS but easy enough to…
Updating Resource Costs?
I had this question come up the other day during a training. The estimator didn’t know when his equipment costs were last updated. I had to think a little bit but then I remember the “updated” field that is available to view but only available…
HeavyBid Info Sheet
Here is a small project I have been working on. Intended for new users as a basic one page information sheet but I will expand it to include information (on another sheet) for more advanced users. Fink it on the link below LINK
Lock Estimates
An estimator leaves your company and brings with him or her some or all of your company’s estimates. That is a huge amount of intellectual data that is on the streets. I see other company’s estimates at my trainings so I know this occurs. HCSS…
Part II – G&A Expenses in HeavyBid
In Part I, I outlined the reasons to separate markup from your general overhead expenses (all costs that are not allocated to an individual job). There are two areas in HeavyBid where I recommend putting this cost. The first option is to put the G&A…
Updating your Master Estimate
Typically companies new to HeavyBid find that they have missed setting up certain labor, equipment or crew. Or maybe you are redoing your Master(s) and want to copy in setups from recent estimates. Obviously you want your Master to have the latest information so you…
Estimate Code – Best Practice
In HeavyBid an estimate code is limited to 12 characters which are more than enough. My opinion is that best practice for an estimate code is a sequential code starting with the year. For example, the code structure would look like this: 20-001, 20-002, 20-003….
Instructions to Activate Estimate & Production History
Looking for biditems from other estimates to copy is very time consuming and those minutes quickly turn into hours of lost time and energy. This could easily be avoided with a better workflow. In Version 2018, HCSS rolled out a method of searching for individual…