Too many commercial bids, not enough estimator hours.

Bid invites keep coming from GCs, and every one needs an electrical takeoff before anyone can price it. Your estimator can only count so many devices off so many sheets in a day. So good bids get passed over, and the ones you take end up rushed.

Book a call

An estimator's hands holding a scale ruler against a printed plan sheet, with a calculator in the foreground, measuring runs off the drawings — Photo by Pilan Filmes on Pexels

Sound familiar?

The bid list is full, and your estimator has to pick which invites to let go.
A lot of a bid day goes to counting devices, fixtures and conduit runs off the prints, before the real estimating even starts.
An addendum lands the day before bids are due, and part of the takeoff has to be done over.
You bid fewer jobs than you'd like, and you're not sure the ones you skipped were the bad ones.

What it costs you

Every bid you pass on is work you never had a shot at. Some of those jobs were a good fit for your crews.

Rushed takeoffs miss things. A run of feeder left off, or a fixture schedule read wrong, shows up later as a cost on a job you already won.

Your estimator's best hours go to counting instead of judgment: how to staff the job, where the risk is, and what number to put in.

And your estimator wears down. Late nights before every bid date are a hard way to keep a good one.

Why it keeps happening

Takeoff is slow and exacting, and it has to be done before anyone can make a single pricing decision.

Plan sets keep growing, and addenda and revisions keep coming after the count is finished.

Good estimators are hard to find, and the ones you have are stretched thin.

Bid dates bunch up. Several GCs want a number for the same project, all due the same week.

Who you'll talk to

Kevin Kirchner smiling, in black glasses, a black cap and a green plaid shirt — Kevin Kirchner

I'm Kevin Kirchner, an AI enablement specialist at True Frontier. I'll want to hear how bids come in at your shop, who does the takeoffs, and which bids you've had to pass on lately.

A good share of the counting and checking behind a takeoff is repetitive work, and it no longer has to fall entirely on your estimator. The pricing and the final number stay with them. Every shop bids its own way, so we start with a call.

Questions

Can AI price my electrical bids?

No, and it shouldn't. Pricing a bid takes judgment about your crews, your costs and the job's risk. That stays with you and your estimator.

Why does an electrical takeoff take so long?

Every device, fixture, panel and run has to be found on the drawings and counted, and the count has to be checked. Then an addendum or a revision can change part of it.

Should we just bid fewer jobs?

Some shops get choosier on purpose, and that can make sense. The trouble starts when you skip bids because you ran out of hours, not because they were a bad fit.

What exactly do you build?

It depends on how you work today; we figure that out on the call.