Unit Costs for Different Job Types

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. Goldenseal includes multiple assemblies for a few items that require different amounts of time for different types of jobs. You can easily duplicate Assemblies, and more variations.

Different Job Types

If you do different types of projects, you might want to have separate line items for different types of construction. For example, you could have both 'high end' and 'low end' prices both 'residential' and 'commercial' prices or both 'downtown' and 'suburban' ones.

For most businesses, a few additional line items in wallboard, trim and painting will probably be sufficient in the MacNail construction estimating software. However if you do drastically different types of work, you may want to have two entirely different sets of estimators, using different Price Masters to maintain each set of unit prices.

Labor-only or Material-only Items

If you prefer to separate labor and material costs into separate lines, it's easy to do so in The MacNail construction management software. Simply create two line items, and put labor hours in one (with zeros under material cost), and material unit prices in the other (with zeros for labor hours). You might want to label each line item as 'labor only' or 'materials only' to avoid confusion.