Calibrating Unit Costs

Goldenseal estimating software includes two types of unit costs-- Cost Items and Assemblies. Here is how to calibrate them to match your own conditions:

Labor Costs

Goldenseal includes only a few Cost Items for labor. To see them, follow these steps:

1. Choose Cost Items from the Costs menu.
2. Choose Find from the Edit menu.
3. Enter Labor into the Cost Area popup field.
4. Click the Find button.
5. To see the different labor rates, click on the right side of the browser 'book' at upper left.

To start, enter the net cost of labor into each labor rate-- it is the average amount you pay employees of that type, plus the cost of any employer taxes, payroll insurance and benefits.

If that doesn't give you accurate costs in your comparison estimate, you can adjust the labor cost up or down until the comparison estimate matches your actual labor costs for the comparison project.

Click this link for more about calibrating Labor Costs.

Material Costs

Goldenseal includes many Cost Items for labor. To see them in a compact list, follow these steps:

1. Choose Estimates from the Reports menu, and choose Cost Items from the submenu.
2. Click the Update button.
3. You'll see a compact list of all prices.

HINT-- Goldenseal reports are a great way to get all sorts of useful information from your company file! It's worth learning how to use the reports interface.

If some of your prices are significantly different from the "starting" prices in Goldenseal, you can change them. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Choose Material Purchases from the Costs menu.
2. Click the New button.
3. Click on the Status popup field on the left side of the window, and choose Pricing Only.
4. Click on the Breakdown popup field on the left side of the window, and choose Items.
5. Click in the Cost Item column of the table, and enter an item.
6. Click in the Unit Cost cell, and enter the current price.
7. Hit the Return key or Enter key to add a new row to the table.
8. Repeat steps 5 to 7 until you have entered the current price for all changed cost items.

HINT-- You probably need to update prices for only those materials that are used most frequently. For example, in the general construction version you can update just 2x lumber, plywood, and a few common items like drywall.

Click this link for more about calibrating Material Prices.

Assemblies

Goldenseal Assemblies include the labor and material quantities needed to complete each type of work. You usually won't need to adjust assemblies-- just change labor and material prices, and the assembly costs will update automatically.

The only time you might need to adjust Assembly quantities would be if you use a different style of construction than what we include. That might be the case if you do something other than "standard" frame construction.

Click this link for more about the next way to calibrate estimates-- by changing line items in the estimate template.

Click here to return to instructions for calibrating estimates.
Click here to return to estimating topics.

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