Are you using Excel for cost estimating?
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Beastwood
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Q:
Are you using Excel for cost estimating?
Data analysis, Microsoft Excel
Over at ConstructionSoftwareReview.com, we have noticed that a fair number of cost estimators, cost engineers and contractors in the construction industry use Excel to determine how much a particular project will cost and to prepare the cost estimate that they present to potential clients.

Is anybody out there using Microsoft Excel for cost estimating purposes, whether it's in construction or in another industry entirely? What are the pros and cons, the benefits and limitations, of using Excel? Do you use Excel as it is, or have you purchased (or downloaded) plug-ins that add macros, modules or formulas? Finally, is Excel an application that you'd recommend for cost estimating, or do you think you and your peers would benefit from industry-specific software?

Thanks for your input.
--Brian Eastwood, Site Editor
http://www.constructionsoftwarereview.com/
ASKED: Sep 10 2008  7:14 PM GMT
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Labnuke99
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I have used EXCEL extensively in this process, although I'm not right now and I do not have copies of the materials I developed as this was sensitive data that I'm sure my previous employers would not approve. I was a consultant for many years and I found that every organization had EXCEL and it provided an easy and inexpensive way for others (including the technical, financial, and executive personnel) to participate in the development and understanding of the financial information. It was easy to adapt to each company's standard methods, to modify, to summarize across spreadsheets in the workbook, to create formulas calculating extended costs, depreciation, etc. . It was also easy to create nice-looking reports for presentations at various levels of detail depending on the audience. In all, I was quite pleased with it as a tool, and it was well-accepted, and again, "free" in the sense that everyone already had the software.

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A good resource might be the Business Functions website. There are some forums under the site that might also provide some insight.
Last Answered: Mar 5 2009  6:10 PM GMT by Labnuke99   26290 pts.
Latest Contributors: Nottslanding   85 pts.
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