Feature

Goldenseal 3.7 lets you use Bids for separate phases or locations in a project. That way you can itemize your work by room, lot number, building, or any other division.

The estimate itself will just be a list of phases (along with any other costs you want to include in the main estimate). That way the main estimate won't be so complex.

Suggested By

Turtle Creek support staff.

How to Use

To divide an estimate into separate phases, first enter each phase as a Bid. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Bids from the Income menu.
2. Click the New button.
3. Enter Items into the Breakdown popup field on the left side of the window.
4. Enter Project Phase into the Type popup field.
5. Type a brief description of the phase into the Brief Description field.
6. Click in the first row of the breakdown table, and enter a unit cost.
7. Hit the Enter key (Windows) or Return key (Mac) to add a new row.
8. Keep adding rows and filling them in, until you are done.
9. Repeat steps 1 to 8 for each project phase.

Next, add the Bids to the estimate. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Estimates from the Income menu.
2. Locate your estimate (or click the New button to start a new one).
3. Make sure you have an Item or Category breakdown.
4. Click in the bottom row of the breakdown table.
5. Hit the Enter key (Windows) or Return key (Mac) to add a new row.
6. Click in the Cost Area column and enter Bid.
7. Click in the Cost Item column, and choose a phase from the list of bids.
8. Repeat steps 5 to 7 for each phase.

Technical Details

You can actually do the same thing in version 3.6-- just create a Bid, and leave the Account field blank.

In version 3.7, we have added a Project Phase option that makes it clear that the bid is not being done by someone else.