eSUB Construction Software vs. GeneralCOST Estimator for Excel

If you are doing any sort of new construction, eSUB is a budget friendly option for managing the process. It's helpful for keeping track of submittals, RFI's and for foreman doing Daily Work Reports. It is not suited really well for plan management and scheduling. The modules for these are not well thought through. Also if you specialize in service work or projects that have short durations (i.e. 1-2 weeks or less), eSUB isn't the best option for you. It would take too long to set up a job vs the time it takes to do the job.

Incentivized

Specific scenarios where GeneralCOST Estimator for Excel is well suited include:

• Small to medium sized contractor who typically works on small to medium sized projects with limited complexity
• Contractors who value low prices over full functionality (this software application is very affordably priced)
• A new contractor or new contracting accounting / finance professional who would appreciate the specific limitations imposed by the software

Specific scenarios where GeneralCOST Estimator for Excel is not well suited include:

• Larger contractors who think about and price projects in line with typical commercial design and construction
• Residential projects (the software is much better suited for commercial lease buildouts, for instance)
• A contractor whose finance department already uses full-suite accounting software

Incentivized

• It is built with subcontractors in mind. There are many PM software available but this one aims at the commercial subcontractor.
• It does a great job covering the basics of typical commercial work. There are areas that allow you to customize such as adding reservations of rights to documents.
• It can integrate with Microsoft quite a bit, we use this in our work every day and being able to export or sync data/calendars has been helpful.

Incentivized

• Convenient estimating
• Streamlines the price quotation process
• Standard cost application
• Overhead calculation and pplication

Incentivized

• I have no suggestions at the moment and if I ever do have a question, concern or suggestion, a quick email to eSUB gets a quick response.

Incentivized

• Only CSI construction cost database data
• Only works with Microsoft Office (Excel)
• The online help system has limited functionality

Incentivized

It has been helpful whenever I've called. They have been able to walk me through solutions and even direct me to the right answer. There was only 1hr difference between time zones so this was manageable. If we experienced bugs, their IT department was helpful at remedying and they were always rolling out updates.

Incentivized

eSUB is not even close when it comes to the offerings that the others have. eSUB is a happy medium for the functionality it provides and is at an affordable price point that it doesn't break the bank. Other solutions are a lot more integrated into the company processes and procedures, which means more upfront investment to get the platform to go live. eSUB's simplicity makes it easier to roll out because it doesn't integrate with as many aspects of the business.

Incentivized

GeneralCOST Estimator for Excel is cheaper, easier to use, more streamlined and is easily installed and up and running. The flip side to the ease of use is the limited functionality, somewhat outdated cost bucketing profile and general lack of sophistication. The add-in also does not talk with full suite accounting software which requires additional reconciliations if used within a large organization.

Incentivized

• eSUB saves time as you don't have to type, print and send documents.
• I like to call it "set it up once, use it a million times" as once you set up a customer, vendor etc... you can use them across multiple platforms.
• It saves money as you don't need a pool of resources to manage a project due to its ease of use.

Incentivized

• Allows us to quickly bid on small projects
• Allows us to pay less for accounting / finance professionals
• Allows us to standardize our cost structure

Incentivized