PowerTools Software Executive Summary

SpecWriter 5.0

Writes specifications and prepares estimates for residential and light commercial construction projects.  Use our Checklist of over 4,000 pre-written specifications to quickly create a complete Scope of Work and Construction Specifications that will save you time, money and aggravation.  Revise our specifications, or add your own at any time.  Use the Template Feature to quickly replicate specifications for similar or repeat projects.  Create an Estimate Worksheet that matches the specifications in your contract, with built-in math functions that total the costs and add the margin and markup.  Includes Takeoff, Schedule of Values, Field Notes and many numerous other features.  Start benefiting from the power of SpecWriter today!    $295.00

ContractWriter 4.0

Writes contracts for new homes, large remodeling projects, and commercial construction projects.  Select from our extensive Checklist of more than 350 contract clauses, color-coded by type of contract, to quickly build exactly the contract you want. Includes contract clauses for Fixed Price, Cost-Plus Fee, Cost-Plus Percent, Design/Build, Pre-Sold, Site-Built and numerous other combinations.  Creates Cover Pages, Main Contract, Draw Schedule, Allowance Schedule, Warranty, Time-of-Completion and other associated documents.  Use our Templates Feature to memorize your favorite contract packages, or try one of the 10 Template Contracts we’ve already built for you.  Add your own clauses, or edit ours as you decide.  Start creating picture-perfect contracts in the first 10 minutes!    $195.00

SpeedContracts 4.0

Writes contracts for residential and commercial remodeling projects.  Enter the basic project information one time, and select from a library of finished documents.  Includes 6 contracts from a one-page Repair Order to a four page General Contract, all of which include Terms and Conditions.  Also includes Draw Schedules, Warranties, Time-of-Completion, Additional Specifications, Additional Terms and Conditions, Right of Rescission, Legal Notices and our famous Confirmation of Instruction.  Preview and Print individual documents, or select and print as a batch.  Customize anything you want, then lock to prevent accidental changes.  Create your own Template Contracts for specific projects or speciality trade work.  Let this easy-to-learn program start making easy work of writing your contracts.    Only $95.00

QuickBooks Pro Template Files

QuickBooks Pro is a great program that will everything you need to keep great books to manage your construction business.  The problem is that their manual, their sample file, their automatic setup routine and their on-line advice all do a terrible job telling you how to set it up for the construction business.  In many instances, their advice is just plain wrong!  Here’s where my Template File takes over.  The Template file is a QuickBooks data file already set up for a construction company, including a complete chart of accounts, three cost codes systems, complete Item and Class List, all the Customer / Vendor / Job Type lists filled in, memorized Purchase Orders, dozens of customized forms and over 30 memorized reports.  It’s everything I can do to make a QuickBooks pro file ready for you to adopt and begin using as your company file.  The manual includes a 12 step Checklist for getting started, and the manual is full of tips, techniques and strategies for getting everything out of the program, including things that Intuit didn’t know it could do, like track vendor insurance expiration dates and printing lien releases right on each check.  Also includes my sample file that I use in my seminars so you can see exactly how I use the program.  There’s just too much to tell you about this program in this small space, so be sure to read the Executive Summary for all the details.    For all versions $150.00

Manpower Productivity Study

Labor is one of the hardest things to estimate, largely because there are no established productivity rates to use as a consistent base. Many popular national construction costs manuals provide manpower productivity rates, but in a multiple of formats (units per crew per day, board feet per man hour, etc.) that make it difficult to compare. In addition, it always seems that no single manual provides all the necessary rates, and in many cases the details regarding each rate leave questions at to interpretation.

The Manpower Productivity Study addresses this problem head on. The study establishes and defines a number of common construction tasks, identifies the corresponding productivity rates from eight national construction cost manuals, converts each rate to the same man hour per unit factor, compares each manual’s resulting rate side-by-side on a bar graph with additional graphs for the average and adjusted averages. This process reveals that while many rates are fairly close, some manual rates were so deviant from the norm that they received additional research that sometimes resulted in a restated rate based upon a different interpretation of the manual, or in some cases they were simply excluded from the final results as being incorrect. As a final test, each rate was plugged into a written scenario that provided a “reasonableness” test of the number by converting it into a real world statement.

The end result of this study is a through set of final manpower productivity figures that are intended to be used as a basis for accurately estimating manpower requirements for concrete, masonry and carpentry trades. The rates are used in our UnitCost spreadsheet to calculate construction costs and are expected to be employed by PowerTools Software in a number of additional estimating programs in the near future.     FREE

UnitCost

UnitCost is a fully automated Excel spreadsheet that calculates unit cost for a number of common structural components. The program puts your local material and labor rates into a series of computer models for demolition, concrete, masonry, framing and finish carpentry. The user may view and modify the master takeoffs or the models as desired. Updates are easy: When the price of an item such as concrete changes, the user enters the new price into the materials list and all the models are instantly updated. The customized menu provides commands for previewing or printing any individual page or the entire report in book format with a cover page.    FREE

Excel Forms Library

I get so many requests for my free forms that I decided to make them available on the website just to make it easier on me.  The FREE library of Excel forms includes many forms that go along with my other software, such as the collection of timesheets for use with TimeTrax, or the rubber stamp patterns for use with QuickBooks.  The collection includes Bid File Inserts, Mileage Log, Vendor Invoice, Design Agreements and my popular Confirmation of Instruction form, plus others I add all the time.  All the forms are in Excel format, so you can edit them to suit your needs.  I originally offered them individually, but over the internet it was more efficient to bundle them all together as one download.  The installation program will install them into a new folder and put an icon on your desktop to make them easy to find.    FREE