Construction Cost Category Systems

NOTE-- We retired the MacNail estimating program in 2000, and replaced it with Goldenseal construction estimating software. There are still a significant number of die-hard MacNail users, so we keep the manuals online for them! Goldenseal is an integrated program that also includes accounting, scheduling and contract writing features. It comes with several construction cost category systems that are similar to the ones used in MacNail.

Using Construction Category Systems

If you already have a cost category system that you've developed on your own, write it up as a Category Sheet, and you'll be able to use it for all of your estimating, job costing and scheduling needs. The MacNail construction management software even lets you convert files from one category system to another (see pages 142-152).

When you create a new cost category system, you may divide the project into any cost categories that suit your needs. Try to keep the categories in approximately chronological order, since that makes MacNail Scheduling more accurate.

You may want to have a separate cost category for each of your subcontractors. You might also want to use categories that are similar to the employee classifications used in your state's Workers Compensation system-- especially if you plan to use MacNail Accounting to calculate your Workers Comp payments based on the actual work done by each employee, instead of using a flat rate for each person.

The MacNail construction estimating software has no restriction on the number of main cost categories in your estimators. However, we have found from experience that you'll be happiest with no more than forty or fifty main cost categories. If you have more than that, you should probably use a system of main categories and subcategories instead.

See pages 143-144 for more on the design of a new cost category system.