Crew on the Fly
When I set up a new customer I recommend that they set up a blank crew along with their standard crews. I would set the crew code to “ZCREW” and the description to “CREW ON THE FLY”. There will be no labor or equipment saved…
DOT Biditem Descriptions
If you import in biditems into HeavyBid from the Expedite/Aashtoware many state DOT’s will have biditem descriptions greater than 50 characters. Issue is the information truncated beyond HeavyBid’s 50 character limit can be the most valuable information of the entire description! HeavyBid has many options…
Cost Estimating Definitions
I found this in Wikipedia and highly recommend this for review for all estimators, project managers and even people who are in accounting that work with budgets and day to day construction operations. This is actually better than what I find in most construction estimating…
Checklists in HeavyBid – Video
Checklists are a good way to keep different checklists running for the estimating team for an estimate. Like anything else in HeavyBid to really make use of this tool, you need to add and customize the checklists beyond what comes with the original HeavyBid install….
HCSS Custom Reports
If there was “my most important blog post of the year” category this would be it. HCSS has a great custom reports group that can do amazing things for a very reasonable price. It is a service that HCSS struggles to get the word out…
Updating HeavyBid to a New Version
When I am offices of customers using HeavyBid I usually ask what Version they are on? Some have no idea which usually means HeavyBid is not being managed well. But then there are the companies that say they wait a year or two before upgrading…
HeavyBid Keyboard Shortcuts
Want to speed up your HeavyBid session? Learning some keyboard shortcuts can really make a difference in your productivity in HeavyBid. Watch this Youtube video where I cover the most important keyboard shortcuts. Start with a few (I suggest some of the ones in Treeview)…
HP Calculators
I know from my travels that there are many of you that love the highly venerated Hewlett Packard scientific and programmable calculators. It was the HP 41 that set the stage for the surveying data collector revolution and it was HP that birthday the Silicon…
Labor Setup Discussion
I see fairly frequently companies setting up labor costs with overheads that with careful consideration should be elsewhere in HeavyBid. Take General Liability for example. It might be based on a percentage of labor. Same for company overhead. But the test for me is this….
V2019 Webinar
If you missed this live webinar on HeavyBid Version 2019 it has been posted on the HCSS Academy site. There is some exciting stuff in this release and the webinar was done by Greg Keenan, HeavyBid product manager. His team is really doing some creative…
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.
