FastPIPE is a construction and estimation software offering from FastEST, Inc.
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WorkflowMax
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
WorkflowMax is a web-based project management solution.The platform offers end-to-end functionality standard to project management software, including time tracking, lead management, collaboration with external stakeholders, invoicing, integrations, and customizable reporting.
It's absolutely well suited to anyone needing accurate piping takeoff and laboring estimates, with great reporting and up to date pricing. I love that I didn't need to spend time trying to update the price logs. It's easy to learn, and works well in a large or small environment, and lends itself to more than just estimating, but becomes a good project management tool as well. Fantastic software.
WorkflowMax is very well suited for a business that wants to track time billed by project, to have an easy way to generate invoices for those projects, and to keep track of overall productivity and invoice status. I imagine it can also be adapted to different types of businesses that deal in goods rather than services and time. I am not sure for which scenarios or businesses the program is not appropriate.
FastPIPE was very fast to learn, very straight forward and user-friendly. It's easy to use and teach new interns and project engineers how to quickly takeoff sections to backup change orders or assist in heavy bid load.
It's fantastic at keeping up to date on price changes. I'd get updates often, and they were usually within 2-3% of our discount prices with local vendors. In the few instances it wasn't, FastPIPE was very easy to adjust or factor for project costs.
Is great at being able to pull up reports and graphs and track different materials and labor costs for factoring. We bid on a lot of high rise residential buildings, so we do takeoff by floor. It would give detailed reports per page as opposed to just a lump sum. Very detailed so it was easy to adjust per our project approach.
You can customize the notifications and this has helped us enormously to schedule dates that we overlooked. Also the templates are customizable which gives the company its own branding on its reports.
It is integrated with the Xero platform which makes it very useful to streamline the processes of billing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, petty cash flow and all the accounting and administrative area.
It also has a very complete mobile version, where we can be present and monitor the progress of projects in real time, no matter where we are.
It was a trick or two learning how to upload prints correctly, I think that interface could be a bit easier, but it's already better than most of the competition.
Might be nice to have easier labor factoring, in case we want to pre-load our own instead of MCA time factors for piping labor
It would auto update upon opening occasionally. It's fairly fast, but I prefer to OK that in case I just need to come up with something quickly and don't want to wait.
Currently the timesheet function allows staff to input time for overlapping periods which can cause some headaches when it comes to payroll and invoicing. We understand this is being addressed.
The amount of flexibility in the product can create some challenges when setting up the jobs database at the onset. It is a daunting challenge but worthwhile when completed correctly and rolled out across the firm. Adding new jobs is much easier.
No search function to find a specific job, you have to scroll through all jobs allocated to you.
Decide how to breakdown your ongoing jobs - are they monthly recurring or annual broken into chunks? What are you going to give clients i.e. how will your proposals and invoices look?
I've used the quote soft piping takeoff as well, and it's just not as easy to use or update. Basic methodology and interaface is similar, but it's more 'clunky' to use, is harder to keep updated and to upload PDF's for takeoff, and it's just not as streamlined or user friendly. Akin to comparing driving a truck to a sports car. The Fast Pipe is really smooth and easy to function in.
WorkflowMax is much much easier than Streamtime, much more affordable and easier to try out and see if it meets your needs. Streamtime is a great comprehensive product but we lost a year's subscription in investment because we couldn't get answers to the support questions we needed and they had a no refund policy!
Best impact is time saved. It's so much faster to do bid takeoff and hit the ground running
Being able to 'draw in' on design-build and being able to print my takeoff has been helpful when turning the job over so the field install understands the approach taken to get the job.
Ease of use and learning has made it much more cost effective to bring new people up to speed.
Max enables Loan Assistant to invoice very quickly and easily and integration with Xero for card payments brings our cashflow forward.
Max enables the Loan Assistant team to manage their workflow in an efficient and productive way. The team all work from home. It is the centre of our Loan Assistant universe.
