The estimating process typically progresses through the following five steps. If you are an Owner you may not take part in all five of these steps, but may instead do a few in an iterative process as you progress through stage gate approval phases.
1. Enter project details.
2. Enter proposal deliverables.
3. Calculate Direct & Indirect Project Cost.
4. Add Markup, Contingency, & Fees.
5. Distribute Cost + Markup to required structure.
The below table displays how these five steps correspond with specific forms in InEight Estimate:
Note the forms used in InEight Estimate to accomplish the steps above:
Job Properties
Pay Item & Proposal
CBS (Cost Breakdown Structure)
PBS (Price Breakdown Structure)
The rest of this section walks you through an overview of each step in the process and its corresponding form in InEight Estimate.
When you decide to estimate a new project, the first step is to create a new estimate and set it up with the general project details. In InEight Estimate, you’ll enter basic information and project specific settings in the Job Properties form from the Setup tab.
The Job Properties form is organized into tabs to help you keep track of all the basic information and settings for the project. It begins with the Overview tab. You will move from left to right entering your project specific information and adjusting any settings that differ from the default.
For Contractors who are submitting a proposal to a client, this step enables you to enter the client provided deliverables clients are requesting pricing for. Most Owners will skip this step unless there is a need to track various funding sources or prepare for internal or external company billing.
In InEight Estimate this list of items is recorded in the Pay Item & Proposal Register on the Setup tab.
• Notice that your pay items have no pricing when first entered because you have yet to figure out costs. You will come back to this form later in the process to distribute your costs and markup.
Once you’ve set up your estimate, you will perform take-offs and cost analysis to determine the total estimated cost to complete the entire scope of work.
The Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) Register is the main form where you will do your cost estimating.
It is the hierarchy of work activities that make up the estimate
Each row in the CBS represents a work activity and is called a cost item
Once you have estimated all project costs, you may need to add markup, contingency or other fees and define the job’s profit in the Price Breakdown Structure form.
You now have a target price or total estimated value that you can spread to your required project deliverables, back in the Pay Item & Proposal form. InEight Estimate has tools within this form to help automatically distribute your cost, overhead and all markups to the listed items.
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