ELECTRIMATE ELECTRICAL

ESTIMATING SOFTWARE

TUTORIAL

Electrimate is a powerful, yet easy to use spreadsheet for electrical estimating. It is designed for use with Microsoft™ Excel™ 97 or 2000.

Disclaimer

It is not the purpose of Electrimate or this tutorial to teach anyone how to estimate. It is assumed that the user of Electrimate is a professional electrical estimator. Electrimate does not warrant the profitability or accuracy of any estimate prepared with Electrimate.

Installing Electrimate

Copy the Electrimate files to your My Documents folder on your computer. An alternate location could be your Desktop or a new directory anywhere on your hard drive. Hard drives do fail sooner or later, so keeping a backup on a CD, portable hard drive, or a USB drive is highly recommended.

Using Electrimate

Select the Electrimate template for the version of Excel or Open Office Calc that you use. Or you can start Excel or Calc and then open Electrimate.

Customizing your Electrimate spreadsheet

The first step in customizing Electrimate is to enter your company information. This is done on the settings page. Note that all items in blue font can be changed. You can enter your default labor rates on this page also. These can always be modified on any bid at any time. If you wish to use your company letterhead on RFQ’s and Bids, delete the fields as needed. After entering your company information, select File, Save As and browse to C:\Program Files\Electrimate and replace Electrimate.xls. Do this at any time that you want to modify your master spreadsheet.

You should check your pricing level and labor units for all items in Electrimate. Update and change them as needed, then save the master spreadsheet.

Estimating a new job

Please note that as this point we will be skipping around the spreadsheet in order to detail the process of creating a bid.

Open Electrimate from the start menu or desktop. Enter the Estimate # (if desired) and job name, notes, and bid date. Any of the items in blue can be edited to suit. Go to File, Save As and save your new estimate to whatever folder you want to use. I save mine to My Documents\Bids. Give the file a name that lets you know what job it is for. Such as: New Building for Entergy.xls. Now you are ready to start your estimate.

Note that in Excel the F2 key allows you to edit any field. In Electrimate Transition Formula Evaluation is turned on in the Tools, Options menu. This allows you to hit F2 then use +, -, *, / to modify the contents of a cell with out putting = in front of it. So rather than having to totally change a cell to add to it you can use F2, + to add to it. This lets you see each quantity entered from different take-off sections.

Note that bid items and added on the fly in any of the blank cells at the bottom of each sheet. Enter Qty, Cost, Labor and the cost and labor will be extended and entered into the estimate automatically. As you use Electrimate more, you will see that some items need to added permanently. To do this start a new estimate, enter the items, then Save As a Template and replace your Master Template. Backup this template often. I use a Zip disk for this. The Electrimate template will compress to about .5 meg if you wish to pkzip it and back it up to floppy disk.

A note about Protection:

All of the sheets in the template are protected to insure against casual mistakes. Protection can be turned off in the Tools, Protection menu. There are no passwords on any of the sheets. Care should be taken once Protection is turned off. It can be turned back on just as easily after making modifications.

Once you have modified all the items necessary, SAVE your estimate! Give it a unique name or number and save it. I save all my estimates to My Documents\Bids. Use whatever works best for you. SAVE YOUR ESTIMATE OFTEN when taking off the job. I cannot stress this enough. A power outage can ruin your day!

Summary Sheet

The Summary sheet shows the totals of all the items in your bid. All the fields in blue can be changed as needed at any time during the bid process. The quoted price field is taken from the Quotes sheet. Changing the Labor Rate must be done on the Settings page. All information needed in the RFQ sheets comes from the Summary sheet.

Settings Sheet

Change the labor makeup and rates as needed. The Crew makeup section is for evaluating the job after completing the estimate. The square foot section is also for use after completing the estimate. If you did not use the square foot formulas in the Pwr page, enter the square footage of the building for comparison purposes. Clicking the Links field on any page of the estimate will bring you back to this page. Then you can click any of the page names in blue to be taken directly to that page. Clicking the page tabs at the bottom of the screen do that as well. You can also use Control-Page Up and Control-Page Down to move around the pages.

Bid Take-Off

It is important to send out a list of quoted items to suppliers as early in the bid process as possible. This gives them time to get the best prices. I start by taking off the lights. Change the names of the lights as needed and change the number of boxes, whips, and labor as needed. All items from the Lighting sheet will be available on the Lighting RFQ sheet for printing out and sending to the suppliers.

Follow the directions on the RFQ Lighting sheet and then print and fax to suppliers as needed. Change the Page 1 of 1 as needed to add schedules, specifications, etc.

Gear Take-off

Next I take off all the gear that needs to be quoted. Do this on the DISC sheet. Note that all fields in yellow will be automatically entered into the RFQ Gear sheet. Any items not in yellow will still be entered into the RFQ Gear sheet, but must be manually added to the Panel or other sheets.

Follow the directions on the RFQ Gear sheet and then print and fax to suppliers as needed. Change the Page 1 of 1 as needed to add schedules, specifications, etc.

Miscellaneous Take-off

Enter devices and miscellaneous items as needed throughout the estimate. Enter quantity in the Qty cell. Change Cost and Labor cells as needed. Do not change any of the Total or From cells. These cells are protected so that casual changes are not allowed. Look at the sheets in the sample bid to see how items are entered.

Pwr Sheet

The Pwr sheet contains a square foot calculator that will figure all branch circuits for an AVERAGE office building. By this I mean an office building that is all normal sized offices. The square footage of any open areas should not be figured when calculating square footage. Lighting branch circuits are figured by dividing the building square footage by 4.5 to get pipe footage and then multiplying by 4 for #12 wire. Receptacle branch circuits are figured by dividing by 4. Entering the square footage on the Pwr sheet is all that is needed to enter all the pipe and wire into the estimate. I caution you to only use this if you absolutely sure it will work in your particular estimate. Use your normal method of taking off branch circuits as needed.

FEEDER Sheet

Branch and any other circuits can be entered into the FEEDER sheet. All quantities of conduit, wire, boxes, etc. are automatically entered into the appropriate sheets from the Feeder Worksheet which is a hidden sheet that sums the items entered on the FEEDER sheet. Any of the yellow field at the top with a red top right corner have comments that detail how to use the sheet. Note that as in the DISC sheet, only items in the yellow field can be used on the FEEDER sheet. Any other items must be entered into the appropriate sheets manually.

Site Sheet

The Site sheet is for entering quantities and amounts for costs related to site work, etc. Add or modify items as needed.

Finishing your estimate

After entering all the take-off items into your estimate, enter the quotes from your suppliers in the Quotes sheet. Modify items as needed in the Summary sheet and enter the Quoted price in the field at the bottom. This amount is transferred to the Quote sheet.

Quote Sheet

Enter inclusions and exclusions as needed and print the sheet for faxing your bid.

Additional Information

The method of updating prices for conduit, wire, and other common commodities, has been revised. Instead of having to determine the unit prices, you can enter the price per each, 100, or 1000 in the columns at the right. This is how supply houses usually provide pricing and it will work with services such as Trade Service, but not automatically - you will have to cut and paste from their system. You can also use retail pricing and set the markup factor according to your discount level.

The additional database that is provided is very out of date. The labor units should be ok, but the prices are not at all current. A cut-and-paste interface is provided. Just make sure you are pasting to a blank line at the bottom of the pages. Follow the on screen prompts; it does work very well if you do exactly as instructed.

All prices should be updated often. I have no way to know what you actually pay for materials. Each supply house sets it’s own pricing per customer. Get with your supply houses’ outside salesmen and they will provide you with current pricing. That is an ongoing process and you will have to keep up with it in order to stay up to date.

A couple of links that will help with pricing are:

http://www.southwire.com they have current retail pricing of wire online. Your wholesale pricing with be different, so set the markup factors accordingly.

http://dale-electric.com they have an online catalog and are a full line electrical distributor with very good prices. I highly recommend them.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding Electrimate send email to support@electrimate.com

Good luck and I hope Electrimate fills your estimating needs.