Keeping Estimating Prices Updated

Keeping BidMagic Up-to-Date

As time goes by, prices change. To keep BidMagic construction estimating software accurate, you'll need to update it with the latest prices. There are several ways to do this, depending on how much time you want to spend, and how accurate you want to be.

Updating Labor Prices

The BidMagic estimating software stores labor costs in the form of person-hours, which are based on the amount of time it takes an average crew to do each task (see page 272).

Unless construction technology (or the work ethic) changes drastically, the number of person-hours required for each type of construction work will stay constant with time. As a result, you can update all labor costs very quickly by entering the latest wage rates.

To update labor unit prices, follow these steps:

1. Open BidMagic or an estimating template that you have created from it.
2. If asked to enter a project name, click Cancel so you can work on the template itself.
3. Choose Basic Costs from the Navigate menu.
4. Enter the latest wage information into the wage fields on the right side of the card.
5. If you use more than one estimating template, repeat steps 1 to 4 for each template that you use.