EstimateOne is where the Australian commercial construction industry meet during tender time. The vendor boasts being the biggest public tender noticeboard in Australia. EstimateOne aims to help subbies find and manage upcoming work opportunities that are relevant for their trade. On the other side of the fence, they help builders distribute and manage large volumes of drawings and documents, across multiple projects.
EstimateOne is well suited for subcontractors or builders alike to streamline the process of tendering on projects. It is a fantastic platform for anyone really, whether you are starting your business and need to build a client base or have an already established business and want to find more projects to tender on. It can be difficult at times to know where you stand after submitting a price, a strong follow up process or CRM is something you should consider before using the platform to keep track of key contacts and jobs you have priced.
Sage Estimating was initially created for the construction industry and many of its current users use it to estimate buildings, but it has adapted quite well for the oil and gas industry. If the user is willing to invest the time and energy to develop and maintain their database, I can see it working for any industry. It is very easy to adjust and adapt the database as estimating methods and project designs change. As an example, our accounting department sometimes changes the way projects are reporting in our accounting software. Because I can go through our 9000 line item database in a couple of days, I am always ahead of the curve and can report my estimates in the format they require.
The program has a fairly antiquated user interface such that someone working in it may not feel like they are working with advanced software.
Sage Estimating has absolutely no remote access capability outside running it in a Citrix/RDP environment so users have to be using a fat/full client vs. any hopes of access on a mobile device.
EstimateOne is easy to use, the user interface is designed to be simple yet functional - many other platforms I have used are much more cumbersome to navigate and don't offer as much functionality. Everything has been thought out well with EstimateOne - it seems to have been designed by people who have worked in the industry.
Abby Tuong is an incredible employee who is EstimateOne. Her proactiveness, willingness to listen and help, and customer focus is second to none. With that level of support, it is no wonder EstimateOne has such rave reviews and is clearly the choice in the market.
Sage's support of Estimating is adequate though frankly we rarely need it. Outside of more complex operations such as upgrades and installation problems the program itself is so straightforward that we do not usually have any "issues" and questions that are more about usability can easily be answered in online forums. We trust Sage's capability to answer these questions if needed but rarely use it.
We are hoping for a positive impact and positive ROI since Covid-19 has effectively stopped our personal engagement opportunities with builders and architects