Material Takeoff Errors

Problem

mac takeoff module- takeoffs don't seem to be picking up materials; update material prices doesn't update items correctly; similar mysterious problems
takeoffs, updating material prices

Diagnosis

Because of HyperCard's disk-based approach to life, it's possible that the internal database used by the Material Manager will get corrupted- information about an item won't be saved correctly, or a number doesn't get restored, etc. The best solution is to have them do a full export/import of all prices and assemblies as described below.

Solution

1. Go into the Material Manager portion of BidMagic construction estimating software.
2. Choose Export Prices from the Materials menu, and export prices from all categories.
2. Choose Export Assemblies from the Materials menu, export all items.
3. Choose Import Prices from the Materials menu, and re-import the price file created in step 1, with the "Replace Price Book" option.
4. Choose Import Assemblies from the Materials menu, and re-import the assembly file created in step 2, with the "Replace Price Book" option.

Comments

There is a bug in the first release of the takeoff module, which could cause corruption problems somewhere down the line. The bug rears its head ONLY if they have imported brand new items into the database, and then deleted the first imported item (deleting any of the others is safe!). Send latest module if in doubt.

Entered 7/19/95 by Vinay. Updated 10/20/2010.

NOTE-- We retired BidMagic estimating software back in 2002, and replaced with Goldenseal-- which is integrated estimating software and project management software (plus optional accounting software).