Project estimates in Workamajig [video]
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Transcript:
When we have our projects in Workamajig and we need to then get sign off from our client to move forward with those projects, we typically need to create an estimate in Workamajig there are a couple of ways that we usually recommend doing that one: you could template estimates in. Estimates that come in from a template are ready to be modified and sent over. Now you might even have a variety of estimates that come in with your template. If you'd offer different packages for that type of project. Some will create a project from scratch, and that's perfectly okay as well. When you create an estimate, or if you are taking an estimate that had come in from your template and making adjustments, you'll always have the separation of our labor portion and our expense portion. The labor portion will naturally bring in your workflow and your services so you can easily go task by task and choose which services you would normally need to facilitate those tasks. Now, if you're like me and you plan your project and look at the schedule and make sure that everything's accounted for there, there's no need to go back in this estimate and go task by task again. We're simply going to go into our little selection and say, pull that information in from my schedule, and that way I now have an exact duplication of my plan from my schedule represented in my labor portion of my estimate. I can still go in and adjust and upon approval, even push it back into my schedule. So we do have both the push and a pull that you can utilize here. Another thing you'll notice is each of these services, at least in my system, have a different rate. These rates are coming from the client record. You could have a grand selection of rate sheets in your system, but default on the client record. Which rate sheet would you predominantly use for that client That way, upon creation of the projects, their appropriate rate sheet will naturally be represented on their projects. You could ultimately toggle to a different rate sheet if that need ever comes up, but you do have to have the appropriate security rights in Workamajig to make a financial change after you have your labor portion taken care of you might get into the expense portion of an estimate. We do oftentimes have outside costs. And those costs might be anything from simply going out to produce, like printing or it might be for an outside service that we're utilizing. We're gonna do a quick little expense for printing. Many times when you're going to a printer or you're going to go out and get estimates from outside sources. You may not know who we're going to use for this client's project yet, but if we know some of the details, for example, I might know I'm gonna need 2000 pieces. And I might know that traditionally when we do outsource printing, we mark it up 20% Workamajig will then allow me to go ahead and create a quote request. And if I go to create a quote request, I can also apply the spec sheet. So in this case again, with printing printers need to know more information than I just need to have you print something they need to know sizing types of inks, and all those different variables, so you might have a print spec sheet that you're attaching, choosing from my different vendors who I might want to send this over to. And just so you know, when we send this out, all of the vendors aren't going to see that you've sent it to variable vendors. They'll just see their information. If I send that out, it will immediately send an email notification to the contact at those vendor's offices to let them know we've got a project would like, quote on and provide them with any of the information that I've sent along with it. They can then respond right back into our Workamajig and whether they provide us with just the simple value or even attach a digital copy of their quoting information. Because many times our vendors would like to share with us how they came about with those numbers, we can then choose which of those quotes we'd like to run with for our client until Workamajig goes ahead and update my estimate. All of that information will then backfill right into my estimate, and I can now see what is the value of this project. I can also see what is my estimated profit margin if all goes as planned. Ultimately, I'll then be able to see how our actuals are coming in as that project progresses. And that might vary based on who ultimately works on this project and what their cost factors are. When we want to then send this over to a client. I can definitely distribute this, and I can email it out of the system. I can download it and submit it as part of a package, or I could always print it out and apply it to the hard proposal package. Either way, what information we share and how we share that information is available for you to customize with our design tool. You can obviously make sure that the information is branded to match your firm with logos, fonts, and other design elements, but different levels of transparency as well. Hopefully, then we'll get the approval, and when that approval comes in, this estimate will become the budget for my project.