Creating New Unit Costs

NOTE-- We retired the MacNail estimating program in 2000, and replaced it with Goldenseal estimating software. There are still die-hard MacNail users, so we keep the manuals online for them! Goldenseal is integrated software that also includes accounting, scheduling and contract writing features.

Creating New Construction Line Items

When you create new Specifications line items, you'll need to figure your own unit price costs (unless you can get them from an estimating book such as Means, National Construction Estimator or HomeTech).

Fortunately it's not hard to translate your construction business experience into Specifications line items that you can use in the MacNail construction estimating software. There are several ways to figure unit prices, depending on the kind of information you have to start with.

The next few pages will describe several different ways you can set up your own construction unit costs, and use them in the MacNail construction management software.