I received this email as a reply to our offer to complete residential electrical estimates for our customers. You might find this information helpful if their circumstances apply to your company.

 

---

 

Hello Bill,

 

A little background on our company.

 

We have two divisions.

* General Contracting: Mostly interior tenant fit up

* Trades: We subcontract to home builders in new homes to complete Electrical and Plumbing.

* By year end 2023 we will have completed plumbing and electrical in 50 new homes and looking to grow that number in 2024 by at least 25% or more.

* I have attached a brand new house blueprint that is typical of what we do residentially.

 

Material.

We purchase all materials including owner selected electrical fixtures

* We purchase material from 4 local vendors

* Would like assemblies representative of local material and pricing

 

Labor.

We subcontract labor to licensed and insured subcontractors

* From what I have seen your system is based upon an hourly price and need to convert to sub price per assembly

 

Supervision.

We use in house labor for supervision and quality control

* We have checklist we complete and need to incorporate this into the project

 

Base house includes the following payout phases and draw schedules

* Rough In / Service

* Trim – includes cost of base house and options

* Fixtures – Builder has preselected fixtures and we only need to release to vendor and install

 

I have used TurboBid and I think that it's a great estimating software program, but I'm not proficient. I think that by having you do some of our estimates, and getting together in a screen sharing session, will help fine-tune TurboBid, and help me become proficient when using TurboBid.

 

This is probably more information than you need but wanted to share our process and vision. We do see things slowing down in our area and need to be more aggressive in pricing.

 

As in most areas, our area is very competitive, so a fine-tuned TurboBid estimate helps with this.

 

TurboPricer / Trade Service Supplier Xchange

I would suggest that you use TurboPricer to update your vendor pricing. The reason I say this is because you stated that you would like the assemblies to be representative of local material and pricing.

  

You have the ability to use Trade Service's Supplier Xchange, also known as TurboPricer, which will update your active estimates material pricing to reflect the cost that you're paying your supply house for your material items.

 

If your supply house does not carry a specific UPC number, an exception report will be generated. The exception report will include a list of alternate items that your supply house carries. You can easily add this list of alternate items to your local database.

 

Supplier xChange, or TurboPricer, will ensure that your material costs are extremely accurate.

 

The cost for TurboPricer is only $55 per month. https://www.turbobid.com/collections/turbopricer

 

Following is a link for a video regarding TurboPricer or Supplier Xchange: https://cdn.shopify.com/videos/c/o/v/1eea52c320084f4ba70b9ac57122c213.mp4

 

The following link will show you which supply Houses Supplier Xchange works with: https://www.tradeservice.com/products/resources/participating-supplierssuppliers

 

I believe this would help you to use the pricing in your estimates that your actually paying your supply house for material, as well as the ability to add items that your supply houses don't carry by adding the alternate items that they do carry to your local database.

 

Adjust Labor Hours for Subcontractors

TurboBid does give you the ability to select Subcontractors from the Bid Price Data > Overhead, Profit, and Misc. Adjusts tab. Go the Adjust Labor Hour settings and enter -100% in the Percent column.

 

If you go to the Bid Price Data > Direct Cost Detail tab, you'll see the Pay Rate and Burden hours are subtracted in the Labor Hour Adjustment line item, with the pay rate and burden combined together.

 

Just make sure to add the Subcontracted Electricians and the subcontract cost to the Direct Cost > Subcontracts tab.

 

The subcontract cost will be displayed in the Bid Price Data > Direct Cost Detail in the Misc. Expenses section.

 

 

 

 

 

Fixture Quote

You can use the Quote tab to display fixtures in the Bid Price by Phase document. You can either list the entire cost that you'll pay for the fixture package, or you can list each fixture separately. Just make sure to include a mark-up percentage in the Optional Quotes tab.

 

 

 

Payout Draws

 

 

Bid Price by Phase Document

Your Bid Price by Phase document will include the payout phases, as well as letting you customer know that the Option Pricing, as well as the Fixture Pricing, "The following items are in addition to the bid price listed above and will be invoiced at the substantial completion of the designated phase."

 

 

 

Sub-Contract Supervision

 You can account for the Subcontract Supervision cost in the Direct Costs > Jobsite Employees > Additional Labor tab.