Making a Bid

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Gary Puckett
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Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 8:19AM

How are you guys doing your bids?

This is getting bad I have to tell a client again that the program didn't pick up all the parts for the job and the bid will be more money.

Also how are you guys dealing with finishing the project (painting or stain) there is no place to add the material/ labor.
This is a great program for drawing but it also needs to be more complete to present the hole job and all that goes with it.

Material
Hardware
Finishing Material
Labor
Shipping ( if any )
Tax

Now I know that most of these thing are in the system in the proposal writer(that needs work) but I think we need t try and get eCabinet to be all that it can be, complete in every aspect.

And back to the start of this topic if you draw something and place it in the room and save the drawing and then save the room the system should pick up all the parts and put a dollar amount to it.

Don't mean to be so negative just been working on this bid for about 5 hours(not the drawing it's been done) checking to make sure it got everthing.

Then have to figure finishing on some other progam.

In conclusion you should be able to draw the project , and everthing should be there.

Gary
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Justin Melhiser

Re: Making a Bid

Postby Justin Melhiser » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 9:39AM

Gary
Have you tried going to settings/preferences, then define cost? In here you can chose use labor base cost calculations. You can set the price per hour for shop hours, machining, finishing, assembly, and installion. The is a misc 1 and 2 where you could set these for shipping if you want. Once you have these set create your cabinet, double click on the cabinet right click and go to set labor cost. In here you can set how many hours it takes for each. Save you cabinet and then add it to the room. If you already have a room created, then you can select each cabinet take it back to the cabinet editor and do the same to set the labor cost. Return to the room and it should calculate the cost. I hope this helps and if you have any questions please let me know.

Gary Puckett
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 11:03AM

Justin

Thanks for the feed back. I did not Know about being able to set a price for shipping, nbut the problem is that (in my project) is that I drew a kitchen desk area with a bunch of drawers gave the client the bid it was about 4-5 weeks ago.
Now she wants to go forward with it I pulled it up only to find out that the bid did not have any of the drawers in it. Why??

Had to go to the shopping cart and add all the drawer boxes. In my oppion this should have never happened. I drew the cabinet with a drawer box and a drawre front. It should have calculated the price.

Gary
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Justin Melhiser

Re: Making a Bid

Postby Justin Melhiser » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 11:51AM

Gary
You will have to post or email me the job you loaded back up that didn't have the drawer boxes added in on the bid. I tested it here and it worked just fine. Also give me the steps you took to create the first bid as well so I can recreate it. Not the bid that you had to add the boxes in the shopping cart.

Peter Walsh
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Peter Walsh » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 11:59AM

Guys,
I have to caution both of you that in the latest eCab version, while entering labor hours for a cabinet, the "Misc 2" does NOT roll up the hours entered into the total hours. The hours entered for "Misc 2" are ignored. This has been reported to the Programmers.
regards,

Gary Puckett
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 12:36PM

Justin,

Giving you the first bid is impossible, because it's not there. When I made the drawing, and was finished I made a copy of the project to e mail and show the client.

When I went to reopen the job the original did not have all the cabinets in it don't know where they went but they are gone.
Lucky for me I had the copy. I have already saved the job with all the drawer boxes in it .

Gary
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Kerry Fullington
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Kerry Fullington » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 12:42PM

Gary,

If you add drawer boxes eCabinets will show the material to build the box and it's cost but will not show any labor unless you add it to the cabinet as Justin suggests.
If you are outsourcing drawer boxes you will have to get the sizes from your cut list and add them manually to the shopping cart to get pricing added into the job.

It is also better to get the outsource costs from the Web Store instead of the software.

Here's hoping for better job costing.

Kerry

Gary Puckett
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 12:45PM

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the info. but labor is not the issue. This problem involves the system not picking up all the parts of the cabinet(drawer boxes).

I was just making a statment that in my oppion the program should have the ability to calculate the job in all phases of the job.

A few of the areas are shipping, and finishing supplys.
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Gary Puckett
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 12:51PM

Kerry,

When I go to add a drawer front to the cabinet I have it to where I also install the draw box. It's a one step procedure.
But I lost the drawer boxs some where( I did find the lights :joker: ). So if I go to the shopping cart and put the drawer boxes in it there they are.

Gary
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Kerry Fullington
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Kerry Fullington » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 12:58PM

Gary,

How do you get the drawer box to show up in the shopping cart without manually adding them in the shopping cart?

I add drawer boxes with the drawer fronts but that only adds the materials for the boxes.

Kerry

Kerry Fullington
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Kerry Fullington » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 1:06PM

Justin,

I hope that eCabinets will reconsider the way it applies job costs, especially labor. Assigning a cost of materials and labor to each and every cabinet is only good if you are a Big Box Store. There are better methods to assign labor to your jobs that don't require so much guesswork. eCabinets has all of the information available but just needs a way to use that information.

Kerry

Gary Puckett
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 1:59PM

Thanks Kerry,

You solved the problem :D I thought that when you added the drawer box with the drawer front it added the drawer box, because you pick a default drawer box and you give it all the offsets, and it shows you the assembled drawer box.

When I go to the shopping cart I do have to give the drawer boxes a size with all the opptions I want.

Thanks now I just have to come up with an explination to the client on why the job cost more :oops:

Gary
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Lamar Horton
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Lamar Horton » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 4:56PM

Gary,

I don't use the PW at all, I tried and thought I could make it work but it was more hassle than it was worth. I nest all the parts then print the cut list and use an excel spreadsheet to figure it all out.

Far be it from me to tell another man how to run his business. But if I gave a client a bid and the later found out I left a bunch of drawer boxes out, I would be eating a bunch of drawer boxes. I have left plenty off of my bids but have never asked for a dime more after I delivered the bid. I have been thankful sometimes when the customer changes things and I go back over and find something I missed and make the necessary corrections. The way I see it is a quote is a quote and my word is my word.

Neville Bastian
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Neville Bastian » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 7:20PM

I was talking to one of the Thermwood staff at IWF who I'll call Mr X. Mr X said that a firm in the UK that sells the Thermwood had been given permission to extract info from Ecabinets to produce a better front end for client handling quotes and job cost. He wouldn't tell me the firms name so I could contact them. If they are reading this forum maybe they would like to comment if able to.
I notice there are a few Ecabinets users who have a computer background and programming knowledge. If someone developed this add on program could this not be a add on to ecabinets that you could buy through the Thermwood store in the future? We could wait for Thermwood to do this but as far as I know, no one at Thermwood has said that version 6 will have this revamped. I'm not sure its rating in importance.

I am a cabinetmaker so all you computer wizz's don't shoot me down but isn't all the material and labour costs placed in a database in ECabinets for the proposal report. For those with a Thermwood it is also stored as a file for a label via crystal reports which has the part sizes and materials. If you extracted that into a third party program you could then have your addons like travel, installation,glass,polishing,handles, drawer runner upgrades,sinks, taps, cornice, waste bin models, wire pullouts etc.

If you got this report the other report could be the break down in costs such as sink cost, sink markup percentage & minutes to install.
Then the other report could be the materials allowed then actual cost, the labour minutes allowed with the actual labour minutes. Then the actual profit or loss made on the job.
Sorry for rambling on
Regards

Neville
Neville Australia

Gary Puckett
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Re: Making a Bid

Postby Gary Puckett » Fri, Sep 12 2008, 9:57PM

Lamar,

The bid had exspired by 3 weeks and I always honor my bids it is just they made changes to the project and in the course of doing the change the error was discovered. There was more involved than just drawer boxes a total of about 1,500 worth.

I'm sure you would eat 1,500 on a bid that went 3 weeks past the experation. Being the upright guy you are.

Gary
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