State-of-the-Art Contractor: Estimating Wrap-Up

This month we’ll complete our journey through the wilds of estimating, talk a bit about job cost accounting, and then answer a question for an anxious reader. In the September issue of JLC we studied the price book section of an estimating program. In October we took a close look at the bidding section. This month we’ll study three other important areas: the report section, the utilities section, and the user/computer interface. The report section sends data stored in the estimating program to a printer, and, in some cases, to the screen or a disk file. Study the report section carefully before making that final program selection. Although all programs will print out the database and estimate information, not all