Mac4Construction

Not April Fools Day joke at all, 360 Difference Estimating 2.0 the FileMaker based program I’ve designed and built to be a part of the 360 Difference Enterprise suite has been released.

To say thanks for your support this release is a free upgrade for the 360 Difference 1.x and Simple Estimate Worksheet users out there.

To potential new users joining the ranks this April we’re offering the program at $299 plus new users will also get to be involved in the development program for the Version 2 Production, Accounting, CRM, Human Resources, and Digital assets modules and get them for FREE to when they are released to the public.

The program allows users to very accurately build a production cost library of items performed internally by a contractors own personnel based on the contractors actual real costs of doing business rather than what some estimating data book says their cost are supposed to be.

The program does the same thing with respect to building a library of production costs based on what your contractors actually charge you or you can build you own cost items based on the billing rates your subs charge you and what you know the real material costs to be too.

And for the times when you do need to pull data from a third party estimating database you can do that too and we’ll be offering them from various providers in the coming months.

Come May 1st 2007 the price on the module goes up to $365.00

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

I’ve compiled the short list of the commercial solutions available* to Macintosh based contractors:

360 Difference Estimating – Perhaps a little disclaimer is in order here in that I am the developer of the 360 Difference application suite. 360 Difference Estimating is a FileMaker based Estimating solution available in both single user Runtime versions for Mac and Windows as well as FileMaker powered versions that will work for one to multiple users and can be deployed in a variety of different networked distributions

BuildWorks™ is a complete construction information management system. Built upon the solid seven year foundation of GC/Works, Buildworks now integrates the Microsoft Office Suite with Intuit’s QuickBooks Pro 2003. BuildWorks‘ proven ”work flow process“ allows you to track and manage your business improving efficiency and profitability.

ECL Software by Eclectus – Filemaker based Accounting, Estimating and Project Management software.

JobPro Central – While not literally a building & remodeling specific estimating system JobPro is a fairly robust general purpose business management solution that can be “tweaked” and used to keep track of construction estimates as well.

PDM-CONTRACTOR™ – “is a highly flexible software package developed by SolutionMakers,Inc. to meet the needs of General Contractors (commercial and residential).”

Turtle Creek Software Goldenseal Estimating – Perhaps the best known of the Macintosh builder and remodeling estimating solution in that Turtle Creek goes back to the early days of the Macintosh back in 1987 with their original product ‘MacNail‘. Goldenseal Estimating is their Estimating solution that integrates with their accounting, and project management tools in one program interface.

(*-While the list above describes software that runs under the Mac OS the reality is that with the advent of Apple’s BootCamp and Parallels the list of estimating solutions available to the Mac Contrator is huge in that it includes every application a Windows computer contractor has to choose from too.)

by: J. Jerrald Hayes