At Jonas we have made the conscious decision to stay out of the estimating space. We just do not think that any company can do a great job on the core accounting, job cost and service management as well as estimating for all the different types of contractors that use our system. We have instead built a standard integration which is used by most of the leading estimating packages to upload estimates into our job cost system. One of the more popular packages that we see in use is ProEst from Construction Management Software (CMS.)

Last week I had the chance to interview Jeff Gerardi (President of CMS) about emerging technology in the area of estimating software. CMS are the developers of the award-winning ProEst estimation and ProEst takeoff software. ProEst currently has over 7000 clients and has been in business for over 33 years.

Here is the interview:

Will: Before we get into questions about estimating solutions I had a question about CMS and ProEst. The estimating space is full of highly specialized applications targeted to specific niches but you guys seem to be different. We have clients in a handful of different industries that use ProEst. Before we move on with the interview could you clarify which industries ProEst covers?

Jeff: Certainly. At ProEst we have clients in the general contracting and specialty sub (mechanical, electrical, concrete, masonry etc.) The only construction business that we do not currently cover are those in the site preparation space where cut and fill products are required or heavy highway. Even in these spaces we plan to be there soon.

Will: How do you cover all those markets with a single estimating product?

Jeff: While there are definitely some differences between contractors of various types they are generally following roughly the same process for estimating. The biggest difference is probably between general contractors who are looking for a single cost per line item whereas most subs will look to do multiple. With ProEst we can set the system up to work either way depending on what our client wants. That is the general philosophy when moving between niches; we reuse the bulk of the product which everyone needs and then add the pieces around the edges which are specific to a contractor of a certain type.

Will: Moving onto more product related questions I guess I need to start by asking you about your biggest competitor: Microsoft Excel. At what point does it make sense for a contractor to move off Excel for estimating?

Jeff: You are certainly right that Excel is a big competitor. I would say that Excel based estimating is fine for a one estimator shop where a senior person is bidding the work and managing the excel files. As contractors become bigger in size they will start to run into limitations which they could better resolve with a purpose built estimating package.

Will: What are some of the benefits that a contractor could realize by making the switch?

Jeff: The greatest strength and weakness of Excel is its flexibility. Whereas Excel is very open and can be changed, estimating packages like ProEst are largely locked down so contractors do not need to worry about their estimators playing around with set formulas and making mistakes. ProEst also forces a standard format on the estimators reducing the differences from one estimator to then next. Probably the greatest benefit is that it is a single database for all estimates. If you need to change the price of a piece of material you can do it just once on the fly and not have to worry about updating multiple versions of Excel. The single database also allows multiple people (assuming they have been given proper access) to work on a single estimate reducing the need to send Excel sheets around and manage multiple versions. Finally, ProEst comes with advanced reporting with things like win / loss ratios by client, office and estimator.

Will: In reading about construction technology I am seeing a lot more of discussion of paperless takeoffs. Could you tell me a little bit about what this is and what benefits a contractor can expect from implementing it?

Jeff: With a paperless take off a contractor will upload a TIFF, PDF or AutoCAD file directly into ProEst and do their take off on screen. I would say that this is the biggest breakthrough in the last 20 years. For the recent World of Concrete show we did some ROI calculations and found that for a contractor bidding 100 projects a year the savings associated with paperless takeoff would be in the range of $62,000 when you account for the savings in printing costs, labor time, and document storage.

Will: Is there any other new technological developments that you are excited about?

Jeff: Definitely. The thing that has me most excited is our move to bring the ProEst TakeOff and Estimating solutions onto a single database which we are working on for the end of 2009. This is something that we have not seen in any other construction estimating solution.

Will: What is the benefit of bringing these systems onto a single database?

Jeff: Right now when someone does a takeoff in ProEst a file is produced which is then sent to the estimating package. At that point the contractor has a separate takeoff and estimate. If, when they change one, they want the other to be updated this must be done manually. When we move these to a single system this step will disappear. As the takeoff is being done an estimate will be created on the fly. If a mistake is found it can be corrected on the takeoff and the estimate will incorporate that change.

From this interview and other discussions I have had with Jeff I can say that they are certainly one of a very small handful of highly innovative companies in the estimating space. Jonas customers use a wide variety of estimating solutions and we can interface with just about anyone but ProEst is becoming increasingly popular. Jonas and ProEst currently share data through this interface but at some point in the future both Jeff and I hope that we can expand that the send more information from Jonas back to ProEst so that estimators can look at information from past won bids to help them refine things going forward.

To learn more about ProEst visit them on the web at http://www.proest.com/