Your Direct Costs for an estimate are the Resources (Plant, Labour, Material, Subcontract) used in your project.  The cornerstone of Benchmark is its flexibility, ease and speed by which you can estimate the direct costs for your project.  You can estimate your direct costs using a method that suits your project:

1. Add Items (An Item is a collection of Resources, also known as a recipe or activity) from an Item Library

2. Import a client's schedule of items (or bill of quantities) from a spreadsheet and price this using Allocate. (see below for more information)

3. Create Items from first principles by adding Resources from your Resource Library into an estimate, or create new Resources within an estimate. 

4. Run a Routine; Routines are ideal for pricing tasks or projects with many user-defined parameters (see below for more information).

Routines are ideal for day-to-day quotes and can also be used to bid items in larger projects, by simply answering questions.  Benchmark's Routines feature is fast and easy to use and will also increase consistency in your business.  When you run your Routine, Benchmark allocates the appropriate Labour, Plant, Material and Subcontract resources required based on your answers to the questions. 
 

mport a client’s schedule of items (or any prepared bill of quantities) from a spreadsheet to save time.  No retyping of data and no chance of embarrassing errors.  You can even save your bid rates back into the same spreadsheet when you have finished your estimate.

All of your estimates and libraries are stored in a central data file for maximum efficiencies in your estimating and business processes.  There is a powerful Project Browser screen which lists all of your estimates in your data file, and allows you to quickly find your previous estimates.  Benchmark's central data file also facilitates better interfacing with your other business information systems.
 

Benchmark allows you to allocate your Profit and Indirect Costs (Overheads and Contingencies) quickly and easily and with a lot of flexibility.  For your Profit you can apply a different % Markup on your Labour, Plant, Material and Subcontract components of your job.  There are also % and $ allowances able to be entered for your Indirect Costs, including Contingencies (Risks) and Overheads like Supervision and Wet Weather.  You can also add Items or Resources to "Overhead Sections" for things like Site Overheads; these Overhead Sections are not displayed on your quote to your client and are spread across your Direct Cost items.  In Benchmark's powerful Spread screen you can control the spread of your Profit and Indirect costs over your Direct Costs, on an item by item basis.
 

Over 70 reports to save you time and save retyping of data.  Reports available include Quotations, Quote with Options, Schedule of Rates reports, Estimate Summaries, Bill of Quantities, Bill of Materials, many Resource usage reports and Overhead reports.  Using Benchmark’s reporting will improve the effectiveness of your estimate review processes, and the transfer of information to your site staff for improved project management and maximum profits.  Many exports to Excel also exist. 
 

Update previous, completed estimates with current prices from your Resource Library in seconds.  Cost Check is a powerful feature that will save you hours of time and is ideal if you ever need to give a client an updated estimate that you priced previously.