The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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P C - B I D P L U S ----------------------- By: I. J. Smith 9795 Rustling Oaks Baton Rouge, La. 70818 ---------------------- * * * PC-BID PLUS * * * (Version 2.1) This program maintains a database of bid items together with Labor, Equipment, Material and Sub-Contractor costs. Ease of use was the primary goal. What use is a program so complex that it discourages you to use it? This program was designed to make it easier to estimate, not harder. While originally intended for contractors, many type businesses have found it useful for their cost estimating purposes as well. Since labor costs can be maintained by both time or monetary values, it could be useful for many types of estimating. The application uses the (c)BTRIEVE file handler. This translates to superb data integrity...no lost files due to power failures, etc. This does not mean you should not make backups of your data files however, disk failures and system problems do occur. Use of memory resident programs should be tested before using, since BTRIEVE is a memory resident program also. The program will remove the BTRIEVE file handler upon exiting. NOTE: Use of accelerated file handlers such as ram-disks will defeat the recovery features of BTRIEVE. Use them with care. Requirements for this application is DOS 3.x or higher, 384k memory and one drive. A hard disk is highly recommended since file capacities are virtually unlimited and performance is greatly enhanced. You will probably run out of floppy space otherwise. NOTE: A proper CONFIG.SYS file is also required. If you have problems running the program, see CONFIG.SYS at the end of this document file. A list of the required files are at the end of this document file. Make sure all files are in the same directory. The program is started by entering PCBID which will load the Btrieve program properly and then run the PC-BID program. If you like this program, registration is 35.00. You will then be sent the registered version which allows for additional user defined overhead factors which could come in handy for additional cost burdens such as out-of-town, storage, etc. It will also create bid prices by percentage factor over all costs. This could be useful for checking bid items as well as establishing unit bid prices. Some contractors use the program and this feature just to check other complex estimating programs they have to use. Feedback is welcome. Your continued support is appreciated. I. J. Smith 9795 Rustling Oaks Baton Rouge, La. 70818 - - - - - As stated above, the program allows for two ways to maintain unit labor costs, time and monetary. A rate is assigned to each bid created and is thus used with the time data in each record. For those wishing to maintain monetary costs, this rate should be left to the default of 1. Notice however, that total labor costs can still be manipulated with this feature, leaving unit costs unchanged. This can be useful for "what if" cost purposes. As an example, to increase or decrease total labor costs by 5 percent, the rate is changed to 1.05 or .95 respectively. This cost will be reflected on the reports only and will not change your existing bid data. You will notice that default fields are used frequently, simply press ENTER to accept these values. The cursor keys are also allowed to move from one field to another and will accept defaults also. Program is designed to maintain three decimal fields which should not create any problems for most users. Some contractors have items that need these decimal positions. The ESC key is used frequently to restart or exit data entry screens. The F10 key is used to process data entry screens when input is complete. You do not need to exit all fields to save the data. Menu options can be selected by number or cursor keys. Where allowed, the PgUp and PgDn keys are displayed on the screen for browsing purposes. SUGGESTIONS FOR DIFFERENT USERS The application is very versatile. You will find many features that you may never use. I have tried to make the program useful to all contractors and at the same time keep it fast and simple to use. In programs, quantity of features usually means complexity and time consuming data entry. By monitoring your costs and keeping a good updated master bid file such as the one in this program, your bidding should be much easier, along with more accurate costs. I hope you take a little time to become familiar with the program's features and capabilities. Following are suggestions which you may find useful for your own bid needs. As stated above, you can use a time based bid file for your labor costs. Rates can then be entered in the job name file for various job rates. This can be very useful for some contractors not having various labor rates. I don't suggest mixing your master bid files with both time and monetary labor costs until you become familiar with the program. You may then find by adding a T or M to your master bid item numbers helpful, (T for time, M for monetary) so as to bid jobs with the appropriate job labor rate. Contractors having various labor rates will find that monetary values are needed in their bid master file. Labor rates in job name files should then be left at 1.00 unless you wish to use it to manipulate the labor costs for different jobs. Remember, you can change all labor costs with the change all option also. Building contractors having standard jobs (jobs whose quantities do not change) will probably find that establishing standard bids and maintaining those costs and prices may be more effective than maintaining a large bid master file. Updates can then be done on a regular basis. For example, you could have bathroom bids, kitchen bids, etc. that could be used for an item in a main bid. Some contractors may need to create separate small bids representing one bid item in the main bid...for subcontractor prices, etc. This can easily be done, and use of the selective bid field listings could be very useful for this purpose. For example, you may have an item in your main bid number 1000 for electrical. You may wish to create a job number 1000E so as to relate it to the main bid. Please keep in mind that the master bid file records are kept sorted by their numbers. A good numbering system for adding records is essential in maintaining a good bid master file. For those requiring a large bid master file, the bid item numbers allow for both numeric and alphabetic characters. You may wish to maintain several bid items for the same unit of work by adding digits. Examples could be 10011, 10012 and 10013, where 1 could stand for your lowest cost and prices, 3 for high and 2 for medium, etc. I have found this to be very useful through the years I have been estimating and bidding jobs. Although you can easily change the costs in a bid, you may find less changes are necessary by using this method in establishing your bids. (Of course, many items may require more records then above). A sample bid number 100 is included for fast trial purposes. Master item numbers 1, 101, 202 and 303 are also included. Please experiment with these items. They can be deleted when no longer needed. After some practice, I think you will find the program to be very easy to use, fast and reliable. Following are instructions in the order of the main menu options, with sub-menus described under the menu option calling it. Pop up windows are used for prompts and informational purposes where needed. PC-BID (INSTRUCTIONS BY MENU OPTIONS) MENU OPTION 7. Company Data This option is introduced first since it is the first to be executed on startup. A sample file has been created and you will need to change the information to tailor the costs for your particular uses. The values used are only for testing purposes and examples. The following information will be needed to properly install the application. Any field you do not need, or choose not to use, may be eliminated by entering zeroes in the field. The information may still be used in the future with this option. ALL PERCENTAGES MUST BE ENTERED AS DECIMAL VALUES (12 percent must be entered as 0.12). Some estimators may need to change some of these values for each bid. Your accountant and/or insurance agent should be able to furnish you with these percentage factors. When choosing this option, a pop-up menu will appear. The first option is for changing the company name, address and phone number. The second option is for entering company data for indirect overhead cost factors as follows: Terms: (Any data you wish printed on proposals.) Percentages: Payroll Taxes on labor costs. Worker's comp or other labor based insurance. Insurance on equipment costs. Insurance on sub-contractor's costs. Insurance based on bid. Bond Premium based on bid. Sales taxes on materials. Overhead on sub-contractor's costs. Overhead based on direct costs (Labor, Equipment, Materials (sales taxes included.) For convenience purposes, the following will default in their respective fields of the Job Name screens. You can change them in the bid name file as needed or when creating new bid name records. Default labor rate Default sales tax rate used on proposals (If any) MENU ITEM 1. BID NAMES In order to create a bid, you must first establish a job name record. This record will contain the bid number, job name, job description, labor rate and proposal sales tax rate if used. Letters as well as numbers are allowed for bid numbers. A pop-up menu will appear when choosing this option. The first choice is for adding and changing data. If you enter an existing bid number, a tone will be heard and the current data will be displayed for changes. Otherwise, a blank data entry screen will be displayed for the new bid. The second option is for deleting bids. It's important to note that all items pertaining to the bid will be deleted with this option. Use this option when a bid is no longer needed. MENU ITEM 2. ADD BID ITEMS Create or add new bid items with this option. You will be prompted for the job number, item number and the master file item number to be used. The job number must exist in the job name file and the master file item number must exist in the job cost master file. You can reuse the same master file item number as frequently as needed for your bid items. A blank master record with a number such as 1 can be handy to enter bid items not needed in the master file. You can then enter bid data at this time or wait and enter it with the change bid option 3. The bid item number determines the order of the listing on the printer. The program will automatically increment these numbers by 1. Some may wish to use larger item numbers so as to insert missed or new items later. Duplicates are not allowed. The master job cost data will then be displayed and you will be prompted for the quantities to be used for this bid item. You can also change any data you wish at this time or change it later with option 3 below. Press F10 to save this bid item when ready. An option is also available to change the master file data displayed. By pressing PgUp you can step backwards thru the master file, step forward by pressing PgDn. This feature can obviously be very useful in deciding which cost you wish to choose (assuming you have multiple costs for the same bid item and their record numbers are closely related). Locating items in a data file which may have thousands of records is not what you want to use this option for. MENU ITEM 3. CHANGE BID ITEMS When your bid file is created with the above options, you can now make bid changes as needed. This includes all data inserted from the bid master file, description, unit, costs, etc. The program will prompt you for the bid number and item number to be changed. You may have to use the report menu to get a listing in order to make the changes. You can also step forwards or backwards to locate items in a bid. This is done with the PgUp and PgDn keys. Remember however, you must use the F10 function key to save changes to an item. This feature can be very useful to browse through a bid in order to make changes as necessary. To avoid errors, the program will only step thru the bid number called for. Remember, you can change all the values at one time with option 5 below. MENU ITEM 4. DELETE BID ITEMS This option allows you to delete items from a bid. You will be prompted for the item number to be deleted. MENU ITEM 5. GROUP CHANGES This option allows you to change all common fields in a bid by percentage factor. A pop-up menu will allow you to choose which fields to change. For example; if you choose the labor field and want to increase all labor field costs by 5%, enter 1.05 at the prompt. To decrease the costs by 5%, enter .95 at the prompt. Some restrictions have been added to avoid errors. You cannot use a factor greater then 2.0 or less then 0.5. These two factors double or halve the existing data fields. Should the need arise, simply re-use the factors again. MENU OPTION 6. BID MASTER FILE Maintains the job cost data base used for bids. It allows for labor, equipment, material and sub-contractor's costs, along with bid prices, description and unit description. Five positions are used for each job cost item. You may use any combination of letters and numbers. Remember, this file has virtually unlimited capacity so choose your numbering system for future expansion. For consistency in your job cost listings, it is usually best to keep the same number of characters in your numbering system. The index will maintain the records in sorted order by the item number. It should be noted again that the labor data will be multiplied by the labor rate used in the job name file. Obviously, this data can be used to store time or monetary values, depending on the contractor's cost system. A pop-up menu will appear after choosing this option. The first option allows for adding and changing records. If the record exists, it's data will be displayed for changes, otherwise a data entry screen with blanks will be displayed for the new record. The second option is for material updates. Since material prices are the most constantly changing cost factors, this option was included to make the master file changes easier. Many contractors will choose not to use the material or sub-contractor costs in their master files, choosing to enter them in the bid update option instead. If your material prices are fairly standard, you should find this option useful. The third option allows for deletions of master records. MENU OPTION 7. COMPANY DATA See first option described above. MENU OPTION 8. REPORTS MENU Several reports and optional file listings are offered. Pop-up menus are used for options where needed. The following descriptions are in the order of the report menu options. Please try them all out so as to familiarize yourself with them. While explanations are brief, I don't think you will have any problems understanding the information contained in them. OPTION 1. PRINT BID ESTIMATE This report may very well be the most important of all. Unit costs are shown with bid extensions below them. A summary sheet is generated listing the various indirect costs as well. The summary sheet will also show the profit or loss based on the estimated costs and prices used. OPTION 2. PRINT BID ANALYSIS This report prints the totals of direct costs, other costs, total cost, profit (or loss) and percentage of cost associated with each bid item. This is a good report to decide which prices need adjustments. OPTION 3. SELECT BID LISTINGS This option allows for bid listings of a single field only. You may, for example, only want a bid listing of material fields to use for incoming material quotes. Extra lines are included on the report for this purpose. A listing of prices may be useful for bid tabulations. A pop-up menu allows you to choose which field you want listed. OPTION 4. DISPLAY BID TOTALS This option allows for displaying a bid total on the screen. You may often make price changes and want to see the total bid amount before printing it out. Sometimes you may know what the final figure should be, this is a fast way to check it out. It will display the bid total and bid sales taxes. OPTION 5. PRINT PROPOSAL This option will print a report useful for proposal purposes. It can be useful as an attachment to a contract or in some cases, the only quote needed. OPTION 6. PRINT BID NAMES This option will print a name listing of all bids currently in your files. OPTION 7. PRINT COMPANY DATA This option will list the various overhead percentages currently being used. OPTION 8. MASTER LISTINGS This option will print out the items in your bid master file. A pop-up menu will allow you to choose a full listing or only selected field listings...useful to maintain material costs, price lists, etc. MENU OPTION 9. EXIT Closes files and returns to system. You should always exit programs with the menu options when finished. You may lose some data if the storage buffers are not properly flushed to disk. =============================================================== The following files are needed for this application. With the exception of the Company data file, you will get an error if these files are not present in the same directory. PCBID.BAT Start up batch program PC-BID.EXE Main program PCBIDP.LBR Screen library BTRIEVE.EXE File handler BNQJNAM.DAT Job name file BNQJBID.DAT Job bid file BNQJCOST.DAT Master file BNQCMPNY.DAT Company data file BNQTNADR.DAT Company name & address ================================================================ CONFIG.SYS file This application, like many others, requires a CONFIG.SYS file in your root directory. Specifically, the file should contain two lines assigning values to the files and buffers. A typical entry might look like: files=24 buffers=16 While this application does not require the numbers above, they are good ones to start with. You will find many data base applications requiring this file as above. If you do have a CONFIG.SYS file in your root directory, check to see if it has statements similar to the above. If it does not, use your editor to add these two line of code to it. If you do not have a CONFIG.SYS file then copy the CONFIG.DTA file included on the application disk into your root directory and rename it CONFIG.SYS. The above changes only go into effect when computer is first turned on. After adding the above, reboot the computer and the program should run properly. ================================================================ To print this file on your printer, enter the following at the DOS prompt: COPY PCBID.DOC LPT1: ========================================================================== DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THIS SOFTWARE IS SOLD "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. BECAUSE OF THE VARIOUS HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS INTO WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE PUT, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. GOOD DATA PROCESSING PROCEDURE DICTATES THAT ANY PROGRAM BE THOROUGHLY TESTED WITH NON-CRITICAL DATA BEFORE RELYING ON IT. THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING THE PROGRAM. ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF PURCHASE PRICE. ========================================================================== Some other programs by this author you may wish to look into: BID-BIZ More complex estimating program offering multiple component and phase costs tied to each bid or primary item, direct and indirect costs burdens... COST BIZ Job cost program. WYS-AR Accounts receivable program. EIMS Equipment Inventory and Maintenance Scheduler. EASY QUOTE Product quotes and cost estimates. EASY INVENTORY Easily adapted for in-house uses. - Others -