Nobody’s business is perfect. Running your own business is a game of trial and error from finding the right employees, maintaining a client base and making sure you have the right tools in place. In order to know where you are making money or possibly losing money, many turn to estimating software as a way to keep margins on target and to track where they’re headed.

There are several companies producing estimating software. Some of them are general estimating systems that must be customized for an individual business. Others are tailored to a broader construction industry and still a handful of others target the remodeling market.

Builder and remodeler Alternative Home Solutions of Mount Prospect, Ill. annually builds six to eight custom homes, completes six to eight renovations and room additions and one or two commercial jobs in a typical year. In order to keep track of all of its different projects, the company utilizes UDA’s ConstructionOffice software to be able to estimate project costs, schedule the jobs and integrate all of the information between their estimating software and Quickbooks from Intuit. ConstructionOffice allows Alternative Home Solutions to add and subtract fields allowing it to tailor the software to its needs and create different formats for its different projects.

“Once you have all of your initial costs loaded into the system you can easily print up proposals in a consistant format whether it’s a custom home or a $250,000 remodeling hob,” says Michael Mazer, president of Alternative Home Solutions “Consistency is what you need in an estimating system.”

Many remodelers start out like Alternative Home Solutions. Either everything is figured out through a long antiquated system of calling suppliers while handwriting a shot-in-the-dark guess at expenses and costs or a spreadsheet template is put together by someone at the company, generally using software with limited capabilities and options. Estimating software is designed to avoid these steps and allow remodelers to quickly and easily keep records of their business dealings.