Creating an assembly estimate

Creating an assembly estimate Creating an assembly estimate is a three-stage process:

Set the estimate basics, such as name and location, measurement, cost book and format selection, and fee percentages.
Add cost lines from the format selected for the estimate. You can also edit your estimate preferences and cost data selection at any time during this process.
Review your completed estimate, either on your monitor window, in print form, as an Excel spreadsheet or in an e-mail in PDF format. See Using the Estimate Action menu for information about this stage of the process.

This section contains the following topics:

Setting up your estimate
Adding costlines

Setting up your estimate

The menu for setting up an estimate consists of three sections:

Estimate Header Information
Estimate Cost Data Preference, and
Estimate Default Markup Percentage.

Use the steps in this section as a guide in setting up an estimate. Note that all fields marked with a red asterisk * are required data and must be completed.

To create an assembly estimate,

Click either the tab for Construction Estimate and then click New Estimate

Home and click New Estimate:

Result: The menu for creating a new estimate is displayed.

At the top of the window is the Estimate Header Information section:

This section contains the name of the estimate, the folder where the estimate is saved, and the name and address of the project or client for the estimate.

The following table describes the fields in the Estimate Header Information section:

Field	Description
Estimate Name	The name of the estimate, which can be up to 100 alphanumeric characters in length. You can use most special characters except the greater/lesser than < > characters
Folder Location	The folder location for the estimate, either Personal or Shared. Use Shared if you are the Company Administrator and you want other users in your company to have access to the estimate.
Estimate Address	The address of the project or client for the estimate, including city, state or province, and zip or postal code.
Estimate City
Estimate State/Province
Zip/Postal Code
Client Name	The client name for the estimate.
Notes	Enter any notes to help you reference the estimate.

The second area is the Estimate Cost Data Preference section:

This section contains the data type to use in creating your estimate, how the estimate is measured, and format and locale information. You can choose from RSMeans cost data, a pre-defined cost data-set used by your company, or both sources.

Field

Description

Data Type

Make sure Assembly is selected. This is the data you want to use for this estimate.

See Understanding RSMeans data for more information about data sources.

Measurement System

Select either English or Metric.

Cost Book

Labor Type

Format

Select the Cost Books and the Labor Type for the cost lines for your estimate. Note that the Format value is set depending on what you set for Cost Book and Labor Type. The cost data used is from the RSMeans Annual Cost Data documentation.

The Cost Book selection automatically selects most Labor Type and Format values. In some instances, however, you can select between two Labor Type value.

The following table contains a list of available cost books and associated labor types and formats. For more information, see Understanding Cost Book Types.

Cost Book	Labor type	Format
Commercial New Construction	Standard union or Open shop	UNIFORMAT II
Facilities Repair and Remodeling	Repair and Remodeling or Open shop	UNIFORMAT II
Residential New Construction	Residential	Residential
Facilities Maintenance and Repair	Facility Maintenance and Repair	UNIFORMAT II
Facilities Preventive Maintenance	Facility Maintenance and Repair
Custom Commercial New Construction	Standard union or Open shop
Custom Facilities Repair and Remodeling	Repair and Remodeling or Open shop
Custom Residential New Construction	Residential	Residential

Data Release

Select the year or quarter for the year for the release of the data to be used in the estimate.

Localization

Select the locale for the estimate based on the location of the estimate. The values for State/Region and City are available when you select a specific country.

National Average
United States
Canada

State/Region

City

The final section for setting up an estimate is for Estimate Default Markup Percentage. Enter the percentages for the values listed in the boxes. The default setting is 10.00 %:

Once you have completed the fields in the menu, click Next.

Result: The basics for your estimate are completed and the menu for adding costlines is displayed:

Note: Your estimate is displayed below the costline pane.

Continue to Adding costlines.

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Adding costlines

Once you have completed creating the estimate basics, you are ready to begin adding costlines to your estimate. Use the format search tree on the left side of the window to scroll through categories and select the costlines you want.

When you click and expand a category, the costlines in the category display in the middle pane. Check the box for the costlines you want and click Add to place them in your estimate. Add as many costlines as required for your estimate. See Understanding Cost Book types for more information about costlines used in estimates.

Use the following table as a guide in adding costlines to your estimate.

Once you have completed the estimate basics, your estimate is displayed below the middle pane. Note that the total value for your estimate is currently zero because you have not yet added any costlines.

Scroll through the format search tree and double click on the category you want to see:

Result: The costlines for the selected category are displayed in the middle pane:

Tip: You can use the following options to view the costlines in the category.

Function	Action
To see an individual costline description	Hover your mouse over a number in the Assembly Number column to display the description for that item:
To move through the costlines for the category	Click the green arrow at the top right of the menu to advance from the first page: To move back and forth, click the corresponding green arrow:
To see only the costlines and hide the search tree	Click the window icon to hide the format search tree: or click the arrow icon to show the format search tree:

Check the box for the cost lines you want to add to your estimate and click Add from the menu toolbar:

Result: The item is added to your estimate with a Quantity value of zero:

Type the number for Quantity in the box and then click anywhere off of the box.

Result: The number is set and the estimate updates to reflect the new value.

Tip: You can change the quantity for a costline at any time by clicking on the Quantity value and typing a new value. Once you click off of the box the new value is set.

Add as many costlines as required for your estimate, using the edit tool bar while building your estimate:

Tip: The following table describes how you can use the edit toolbar.

Feature	Description
	Check the box for the costline(s) you want to add and click Add to add costlines to your estimates.
	Check the box for the costline(s) you want to remove and click Remove to remove costlines from your estimate.
	Click Insert to insert a user-defined cost line to your estimate. See Creating user-defined costlines for more information.
	Click Save to save the current version of your estimate.
	Click Estimate Action and select from the drop-down list of actions to perform. Tip: To see a preview of your estimate, click Preview and then click Go. A window opens showing a preview of your estimate. See Using the Estimate Action menu for more information about using the tasks in the Estimate Action menu.
	Select an action to perform from the action tool bar and click Go.
	Select from the View list either Basic or Advanced.

Once you have completed adding costlines to your estimate, you can choose a variety of ways to view your completed estimate.

For more information, see Using the Estimate Action menu.

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