According to Webster's, estimating is "an approximate computation of the probable cost of a piece of work made by the person undertaking to do the work". "Approximate" and "probable" are the notable words here. Estimators' livelihood revolves around assumptions, supposition, and educated guesses. We are the risk takers behind the scenes, and when everything flows smoothly we are unnoticed. However, when the project heads South, we take the finger pointing. A missed detail on a spec sheet or a sub-bid that didn't get added into the total could be the blame. Even a small bid requires attention to details, and missing just one could be the difference between a successful and lucrative project and building something for the experience of it. Over the years of estimating I recognized that many of the actions that resulted in an accurate and winning bid were the same for each project. Performing an accurate take-off, putting together a complete scope of work, securing the best material prices and sub-contracts, and putting it all together in a comprehensible format were each time consuming yet necessary tasks. There is no mystery to a good takeoff, it takes time. Study the plans, visit the site, take reviewable notes, and then study the plans again. You must do this for every bid if you expect to be accurate. The rest of the process is where I found my time being squandered. After hours of manually calculating and figuring, one changed dimension or wrong number could take dozens of calculation to correct. I would spend hours checking and re-checking items to be certain there were no errors. Then putting together a professional looking proposal was a challenge, particularly when a change at the last minute made the whole page useless. This is when I found the power of a spreadsheet. I did not set out to make an estimating program, but I found that writing formulas one time could make tedious calculations repeatedly and instantly, without the worry of a miscalculation. Also a small change could be made that would update globally over the entire bid. Then I found that linking information from one page to another saved having to type it in again. My one page spreadsheet turned to two then four and finally seven. For two and a half years I have updated and improved the spreadsheets. During that time I used this program to estimate 281 projects, valued at almost 11 million dollars. I was successful on 1.4 million dollars of work with only one job that didn't make a profit (to no fault of the estimate). Consistently in public and private opening my winning bids are less than 10% lower than the second place bidder and rarely are my bids 10% higher than the responsible winning bidder on my unsuccessful bids. Although I continue to think of things that would make the program even better, it is well-designed, easy to use and powerful as it is. I have used many of the popular estimating programs on the market today. While some of them are very powerful, most are complicated and some even require a large amount of training to use efficiently. These programs are priced from a few hundred dollars for a single user up to $10,000 or more for a multiple user set up. EZ Estimator sells for less than $100.00 dollars and can be used by someone with very limited computer experience. This is why I have decided to share it, to promote responsible and accurate bidding through a user friendly, well tested and inexpensive estimating program.
		The above text is an excerpt from the EZ Estimator users manual.
			My name is Justin Martin.  I have been in the construction industry for the past 17 years.  Longer than that if you count the summers helping my Father as a kid.  When I was around 12 years old I was looking over my Fathers shoulder as he bid a job, long hand, on a yellow ledger pad.  (I don't believe the PC had been invented at that time.)    My brother and I wanted a motorcycle in the worst way and we had been pursuading my Father for months.  He was explaining the bidding process to me and he had an idea.  He wrote right in the bid, "2 Yamaha YZ125 mortorcycles $2,500.00".  Then he told me that if he got the job and my brother and I would help him with it, the motorcycles were ours.  He got the job, we did our part, and at the end we got motorcycles.  From that day on I was intrigued by the bidding process.  I couldn't beleive that you could just put anything in a bid, and still get the job.  Well, over the years I have discovered that it is not quite that easy, but it is true, you can use any method that suits you to put together a bid...as long as it works.  I worked for years in the field as a laborer then an operator and finally project management.  I started my estimating career bidding jobs long hand, just like I had seen me Father do years before.  There were a few scary moments when a bid had gone bad, nothing that broke the bank, but good learning exeriences just the same.  In the early 90's I took some computer classes at a community college and learned Cobal and some other languages that are useless today.  I also started experimenting with databases and spreadsheets.  Anyone who has spent time with them will understand when I say that I fell in love with databases.  With enough time I thought they would revolutionize the world.  I finally came to understand that a database was just a spreadsheet, only someone had fashioned it with formulas and fancy windows and it was far more complicated then a spreadsheet.  Years passed and one day I found my Father in his office bidding a job using a spreadsheet.  I think it was IBM's Lotus 123 version 1.A.  My Dad wasn't the most computer savy person, but the spreadsheet was taking formulas he had been working with all his liife, and the simplicity of it made him comfortable with the program.  The remarkable part was that he only had to enter them in once and the computer used it over and over.  I knew that this was a far better application than databases or expensive inhouse designs.  It took several years, and hundreds of bids to get something I was truly happy with.  The program developed in a natural way until I had covered almost every tedious and repetitive part of bidding.  I shared my program with some co-workers and found they too increased the accuracy of their bids while decreasing the time spent.  After some interest and persuasion, I decided to market my work.  This program can help newcommers as well as seasoned estimators.  I hope that you will give it a try. I will answer any questions that I can, time permitting.  My e-mail address is jmartin83647@yahoo.com. Good Luck with your estimating! Justin Martin
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