Whether you’re a consultant whose full-time job is estimation or you’re a contractor who does it himself, it’s important that your electrical estimates be as accurate as possible. That’s why companies like ConEst Software Systems offer programs that make electrical estimates quick, simple, and most importantly, accurate.

Stephen Carr, president and owner of Carr Consulting Services, has been using ConEst IntelliBid for 10 years with great results. After researching similar tools, Carr said his company thought IntelliBid’s features and interface were superior. The small company now uses the software daily for large residential, commercial and industrial electrical estimates.

Carr said that they have maintained the same work processes, but the organization and input speed of takeoffs has improved with IntelliBid. He estimates it saves the company about eight hours and $200,000 to $500,000 on each estimate.

“One good example would be a project we estimated using ½” conduit (and) an addendum changed the conduit size to ¾” minimum,” Carr said. “The Substitution module in ConEst changed hundreds of takeoff items from ½” to ¾” in seconds. This saved us hours of re-entering the takeoff.”

For electrical estimates, Carr said the most useful features have been the interactive and visual audit trail, the copy and paste interface, the organizational abilities and the user defined takeoff libraries. The only feature they don’t use is the count sheets, but the next version will be better, he said.

The software was well worth the price for Carr Consulting; in addition, it took little training to learn, and the user documentation and support have been very helpful, Carr said. Overall, he rated IntelliBid a perfect 10 out of 10 and would recommend it to all electrical estimators.