Calibrating Estimating Prices

Calibrating Estimates

The BidMagic construction estimating software comes with a built-in price book of construction unit prices, calculated from our own experience at Turtle Creek Construction, here in upstate New York.

To get BidMagic to hit 'on the nose' for your own projects, you may need to adjust its prices so they'll match your own conditions. Construction costs can vary for a number of reasons, including:

• Regional differences-- some areas are more expensive than others.
• Economic differences-- costs are usually higher during 'booms,' and lower during 'busts.'
• Construction differences-- costs are different between tract builders, custom homebuilders, and remodelers.
• Quality differences-- the same item will usually cost more when doing 'high end' work, because of the extra care taken.

The best way to calibrate the BidMagic estimating software is to get it to hit exactly for one or more projects you have already completed (or at least estimated by some other method).

Calibrating the BidMagic estimating software is a four step process:

1. Figure your own actual costs for one or more projects (or make a detailed estimate for them, by hand).
2. Use BidMagic to make a comparison estimate for each project.
3. Adjust BidMagic until it matches your actual costs for the project.
4. Save the new adjusted version of BidMagic as a template.

Once you've calibrated BidMagic to match prices on a few old projects, you can be confident that it will be sufficiently accurate when bidding or estimating new projects.

With BidMagic you can create a personal estimating template that will bid your projects correctly for a long time to come--even without further calibration. It's definitely worth the effort!