Category Conversion Quirks

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.

Converting Estimating Categories

The 'stock' MacNail and CSI category systems have a one-to-one relationship with each other. For each category in one of the systems, there is exactly one matching category in the other. When you move prices between two systems with a one-to-one relationship, all items end up exactly where they are supposed to.

In your own custom category systems, you may have some relationships between cost categories that are not exactly one-to-one. The MacNail construction management software will still be able to convert items in those cases, but it may not always put everything in the correct place.

Conversions that are many-to-one still work perfectly well, but one-to-many transfers may not be completely correct, since the MacNail construction estimating software doesn't know how to 'split' the items between the smaller subcategories. Instead, all items will be put into whichever smaller category is first in the Category Code Master, and you'll have to move some of the items to their correct category after the prices are moved.

For example, you might decide to combine MacNail's insurance & legal (A.03) and professional services (A.04) categories into a single professional services category in a new system. In that case, converting from MacNail to the new system will be fine, since it's many-to-one, but moving prices from the new system back into MacNail will put everything into insurance & legal, even items that were originally in professional services.

On the other hand, you might decide to split MacNail's deck (F.10) category into separate deck floors and deck rails categories in your new system. In that case, converting from MacNail to the new system will have problems, but going from the new system back to MacNail will work fine.

If you have 'one-to-many' problems after moving new items into a Price Master, or after converting category codes in a Price Master, type the correct category into the cat column for each item that was not handled correctly.

If items are put into the wrong categories when moving new items to an estimator, add some rows at the correct location, copy the rows that are in the wrong place, paste them into the correct location, then go back and delete the affected rows from the original wrong location.