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Computer Aided Design Software for Foundation & Concrete Contractors

Price Wars 28 Jun 2021, 8:39 pm

Price wars are reactions to competitor price reductions and don’t take much thought: Joe’s company lowers his price so everyone follows suit. When work is slow, it’s a never ending battle.

The end result of a price war is usually that someone ends up out of business… and it could be you.

So we know what starts a war, but how does one keep from self-destructing during the battles?

The best way is to know your overhead and how it applies to your pricing. Once you forget your overhead in everyday bidding—and especially in a price war time—it’s too late.

What one needs to remember is that every company’s overhead is normally different. What you may not realize is that, by percentage, it could also be the same.

For example, a company that has 10 employees can have the same overhead percentage as a company with 100 employees. But knowing yours is the most important part of business!

Let’s look at an Assembly breakdown:

COST OF MATERIALS: By most standards is the same for every company.

LABOR: Even though a company thinks they have the fastest help, normally all labor is pretty close to being the same cost. Even if a company is paying piece work, it only insures that they do not go over cost.

So up until this point, everyone is the same.

OVERHEAD: Why should overhead control your pricing? If Cost of Materials and Labor Cost are absolute facts, then the only variables left would be Overhead and the Profit Margin.

During a price war, the first thing to be challenged should be your Overhead and what can be cut.

Vehicles:

Park all unnecessary vehicles.

Empty the gas tank to working vehicles.

Change insurance for all parked vehicles.

Exchange parked vehicles in lieu of repairing vehicle.

Salaried Employees: (This includes the owner)

Cut salaries to an employee sustainable existence verses layoffs. Layoffs should be of last resort.

Optional: Owner to take Base salary as Loan to officer. This can be adjusted when things pick up.

No new nonessential acquisitions.

Insurance:

Shop all your insurance (minimum requirements).

Miscellaneous:

Items to look at also include upgrades to software and computer hardware.

You can look around and see what else feels comfortable changing. You will be surprised how much you can save, which may stay the same as work picks up.

PROFIT MARGIN

This is the most difficult to figure out. Once you have estimated your lowest price based on Material, Labor and Overhead, it may take a few bids to see where your competitors sit before profit percentages can be established.

Keeping in mind that it will vary from Competitor to Competitor. Start with a percentage around 10% and if necessary, work your way down.

If you can find out who you are bidding against beforehand, you can establish a profit margin for each competitor. If you are bidding against all your known competitors, then you would naturally go with the lowest profit percentage.

Remember, you never want to bid below your cost. That would be Material + Labor + Overhead = Cost. You may want to establish the lowest profit margin you are willing to bid with.

If you would like to see how Estimate Concrete Software can help in all your bidding situations, let us know and we will set up a software demonstration.

The post Price Wars appeared first on GDB Software.

The Best Software for Takeoffs and Estimating Concrete 16 May 2021, 8:37 pm

Why have Estimate Concrete Software and Auto Crete been the best choice for takeoffs and estimating concrete software on the market for over 35 years?

Because they are the best!
The easiest to use!
The fastest software to learn!

When you reproduce a drawing in Auto Crete, everything placed in the drawing is accounted for. This generates an exact takeoff of the drawing of all footings, walls, piers and columns and/or component like windows, anchors and rebar placed in the drawing.

Once a drawing is complete, the takeoff takes 10 seconds for the main foundation, with the flatwork taking 30 to 40 seconds. After the takeoff is complete, you are ready to capture the onscreen takeoff and generate the quote.

It takes 20 seconds to capture the onscreen takeoff and convert it to a file. Estimate Concrete Software then captures the file and completes the quote in under 10 seconds.

What’s special about Estimate Concrete Software?

It allows for Assembly Unit price bidding. This allows the user to adjust pricing on each Assembly, such as footings and walls.
You can set the profit margin default to be the same for all Assemblies.
You have Overhead Control that can be applied to labor, material or labor and material.
Assembly Price Protection: Allows the user to override unit cost with the security that Estimate Concrete will display a negative in the Profit Field, when priced below cost. This ensures that you know if you are bidding an Assembly too low or too high.
Rebar can be bid separately or inclusive for all Assemblies.

Estimate Concrete Software will produce a material report for the project that includes concrete, rebar, anchors, drain tile, windows, window wells or any other material that was included in the Bid.

With the Takeoff and Quote complete, when you receive the job, Auto Crete is ready to:

Add Total Station Point layouts or Layouts for Excavation.
Footing Forming using For-A Drain, Pro Form HD, EZ Footing Forming and Lumber Forming with Cuts.
Dimension including Diagonals.
Panel layouts to any height and an a forming materials list including Ties.
Concrete Pour Schedule for material ordering.

If you want to be absolutely amazed, let us prove how thorough Estimate Concrete Software and Auto Crete are with an online demonstration using your drawings.

The post The Best Software for Takeoffs and Estimating Concrete appeared first on GDB Software.

Why It’s Worthwhile to Upgrade Your Auto Crete Software 10 Oct 2019, 10:06 pm

For 35 years, every month without fail we get calls from our Auto Crete users who want to know what is new and why they should upgrade their software.

Auto Crete is one of the largest programs for Concrete and Foundation Contractors in the world. We develop not only for the U.S. (Imperial), but also for companies outside of the U.S. This means that we develop software for both the Imperial and Metric systems.

So, sometimes we don’t introduce new features, but instead improve current functions by making them faster and easier to learn and use. Specifically, this might mean taking a command and instead of using five steps to complete a function, we cut it down to one or two steps. It’s what we at GDB Software refer to as a single select command. This helps you stay as efficient and productive as possible when you use Auto Crete RLC or Auto Crete Commercial.

With the advent of our use of BricsCAD since 2016, we have had to frequently modify programming in Auto Crete to allow users to move into their newer platforms.

Every time a CAD software company comes out with a new release, we have numerous modifications to adjust in Auto Crete so all the functions in the programs work correctly.

With 1786 commands in Auto Crete, it makes updating programing very time-consuming!

Future development is what keeps companies like ours ahead of the competition, and this costs money. We rely on upgrades to help us develop new features, and also depend on user requests and feedback when developing software upgrades.

The post Why It’s Worthwhile to Upgrade Your Auto Crete Software appeared first on GDB Software.

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