Default Indirect Cost Items

VIDEO | Default Indirect Cost Items

InEight Estimate contains various default cost items to help you calculate your indirect costs.

Independent Indirect Cost Items

Independent indirect cost items function very much like the direct cost items you defined previously:

  • Job Management & Equipment

  • General Expense

Job Management & Equipment

The sample Job Management & Equipment Record below shows that you can add resources and production just like in your direct cost items. Supervisory staff resources were added, and the production duration is set to 100 days.

The following Step by Step walks you through defining resources and costs for your Job Management & Equipment indirect cost item.

Step by Step — Add Job Management & Equipment Costs

  1. In your job, from the InEight Estimate landing page, select the Estimate tab.

  2. Select Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS).

  3. Double click on the Job Management & Equipment row header.

    • You can see that this record looks like the direct cost item records that you have been working with thus far in the CBS

  4. Here you will add a labor resource by clicking in the Code column and selecting the icon.

  5. Select the Production tab.

  6. Enter a numeric value in the Days field.

    • This represents the length of the job

  7. Click OK to close the record.

Step by Step — Add General Expense Costs

  1. In your job, from the InEight Estimate landing page, select the Estimate tab.

  2. Select Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS).

  3. Right click on the General Expense row header and select Open.

    • The General Expense cost item record also looks identical to a direct cost item record

    • You could add existing resources here, but in this case, you will create an ad hoc resource

  4. Type in a description the Description column.

  5. Enter a number in the Quantity field.

  6. For the Unit of Measure field, select a Unit of Measure from the drop down.

  7. Click on (highlight) that row, and then click the Resource Employment Breakdown tab.

  8. Enter a number in the Undefined Supplies cost category.

    • The amount entered automatically fills into the unit and total cost columns

      You are only allowed to enter information in the Resource Cost Breakdown if the resource row is selected, otherwise fields will not display.

  9. Click OK to close the record.

Dependent Indirect Cost Items

The other default indirect cost items are dependent indirect cost items, meaning their costs depend on other costs, prices or hours. They include:

  • Direct and Indirect Cost Add-On

  • Direct and Indirect Cost Escalation

  • Prime Bond

  • Price % Add-On

  • Job Financing

  • Man-Hour Add-On

It’s possible to assign any assigned or dependent cost Item to any of the 3 cost segments and provides greater control over where costs exist in the Price Breakdown Structure (PBS).

Default Dependent Cost Item Deletion

If you need to use additional dependent cost items, you can create your own, but you must delete all the existing default dependent cost items first.

The following steps walk you through deleting your existing default indirect costs so you can create your own.

Step by Step — Delete Existing Default Dependent Cost Items

  1. In your job, from the InEight Estimate landing page, select the Estimate tab.

  2. Select Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS).

  3. Select an indirect cost item by clicking on its row header.

  4. Press and hold the Shift key while selecting another indirect cost item.

    • All your dependent indirect cost items are now selected

  5. Right click on the selection and select Delete.

  6. Select Yes to confirm you want to delete the selected cost items.

    • Your indirect cost items are now deleted

Prime Bond

The following steps walk you through adding and defining your prime bond for the job.

Step by Step — Define Prime Bond

  1. In your job, from the InEight Estimate landing page, select the Estimate tab.

  2. Select Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS).

  3. Right click on the row header for any cost item and select Insert Dependent Cost Item.

  4. On the resulting Attention prompt, select Based on Bond Table.

  5. Click OK.

    • The Prime Bond indirect cost item now displays at the top of your CBS

  6. Right click on the Prime Bond row header and select Open.

    • Prime Bond represents the insurance for the job

    • This is an irregular form and uses bond rate tables

      • The form’s Bond Table Name defaults to No Bond Required until a saved Bond Table Name is chosen

  7. Use the Table Name drop-down to choose EXAMPLE: GENERAL CONSTRUCTION

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  8. Click OK to close the record.

    • The Prime Bond indirect cost item is now added to your CBS

Multiple bond rate dependent items

For certain projects, it may be desirable to calculate costs for bond or insurance premiums based upon multiple different rate tables. It is now possible to add multiple bond/rate table based dependent items in the CBS.

For example, in addition to having a prime bond, the job may also require insurance coverage where the premium is calculated using a rate table-based approach. This can now be accomplished by adding another Bond/Rate-table based dependent cost item to the job.

Deleting Bond Tables

Delete bond tables that are not applicable to your estimate by selecting them and then clicking the Delete button. You can customize the Bond Table window to only view the tables that are relevant to your estimate from the Table Name drop-down list.

Price % Add-On

The following steps walk you through defining the Price % Add-On.

Step by Step — Define a Price % Add-On

  1. From the Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) Register, right click on the row header for any cost item and select Insert Dependent Cost Item.

  2. On the resulting Attention prompt, select Based on Job’s Price.

  3. Click OK.

  4. Double click on the Price % Add On row header to open the record.

  5. The Price % Add-on Record opens to the Description tab. Type a description in the Description field and enter a numeric value for rate.

  6. Click OK to close the record.

Direct Cost Add-On

The following steps walk you through creating a Direct Cost Add-On dependent cost item.

Step by Step — Define a Direct Cost Add-On

  1. From the Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) Register, right click on the row header for any cost item and select Insert Dependent Cost Item.

  2. On the resulting Attention prompt, select Based on Direct Costs.

  3. Click OK.

  4. Double click on the Direct Cost Add-On row header.

  5. On the Description tab, type a description in the Description column.

  6. Press the Tab key (you can define additional rows for other add-on costs as needed).

    • The Dependency Cost Breakdown appears on the right

    • The Subject Cost is the cost that the cost item depends on, based on what is defined on the cost item’s Dependency tab

  7. Click on the Dependency tab to see what contributes to your subject cost.

    • These are the cost items on which this Direct Cost Add-On depends

    • There are a couple of options at the bottom to control how dependency items are selected. By default, the bottom radio button is selected

      • The bottom radio button allows you to use column filtering to control what items are included

      • The top button allows you to manually select the cost items you would like to include

  8. For this activity, leave the default (lower) button selected.

  9. Click on the Description tab, where you can define an add-on Rate (percentage) or Cost at any of the cost category levels in the Dependency Cost Breakdown on the right side of the record.

    • You can also add a rate at the Total level to have it apply to all your cost categories

  10. Enter a numeric value in the Rate field at the Labor cost category level, then press Tab.

  11. Click OK to close the record.

Repositioning Dependent Cost Items

Repositioning dependent cost items creates a simpler way to manage the hierarchy of your project by placing items of more importance ahead of other line items.

Since dependent cost items can now be repositioned, a Position Code field has been added with the functionality similar to column remaining the same. The below listed dependent cost item fields are now exposed in the CBS register so you can more easily see the various percentages used in dependent items.

• Subject Cost

• Subject Cost Rate

• Subject Billing Amount

• Subject Billing Rate

These columns can also be found in the new saved view Bid Review.