Comparing estimates

Compare on the Bill of Quantities toolbar opens this estimate next to another one of your company’s estimates. Use it to price a new job from an old one, or to see why one job costs more than another.

Opening two estimates

It opens with every cost code closed except the one you were looking at in the Bill of Quantities: that one is open, scrolled into view and briefly highlighted - on both sides when Keep in step is on and the other estimate has a matching cost code. It also remembers what you compared: open Compare from an estimate you have compared before and the other one is already chosen - the last one you put next to it, on any computer you sign in on. Choose a different one and that becomes the one remembered.

Back to BOQ (top left) returns to the Bill of Quantities of the estimate you came from, on that cost code.

Each side has its own estimate picker - type part of the job name, the estimate name, a code or the suburb. Only estimates you are allowed to open are listed. The page address remembers both, so you can bookmark a comparison or send the link to a colleague (they still need access to both jobs).

• Side by side or Stacked - the switch at the top left. Stacked suits long item names on a narrow screen.
• Swap puts the two the other way round.
• Keep in step (on by default): opening or closing a cost code, searching, or changing the cost code set on one side does the same on the other. Cost codes are paired up the same way the copy does it - see below.

Each side shows its cost codes with their totals, and the items in them with quantity, rate and total. The footer shows the estimate’s total and how much more or less it is than the other one. Rates and totals follow your See costs and rates permission.

Nothing can be edited here - change items in the Bill of Quantities as usual. This page only looks and copies.

Copying items across

1. Tick items on one side - or tick a cost code to take everything in it.
2. Press Copy … to the right (or left, above, below).
3. Check the preview, then press Copy.

Dragging instead

Drag an item, or a whole cost code, across to the other estimate:

• Drop it on a cost code and everything goes into that cost code.
• Drop it anywhere else on that side and each item goes to its own matching cost code, as with the button.
• Drag one of your ticked items and all the ticked ones go together.

While you drag, the other side is outlined and the cost code under the pointer lights up. An estimate you cannot add items to says so and does not take the drop. Dropping opens the same preview as the button, already filled in, so nothing is copied until you press Copy. (Dragging needs a mouse; on a tablet use the tick boxes and the button.)

The preview lists each item and the cost code it goes into on the other estimate:

• Matched - the same cost code, one copied from the same template, one with the same code, the same place and name, or the same name, in that order.
• No match - choose one - that estimate has nothing like it. Choose a cost code for it (type to search), or use One cost code for all of them at the top. Copy stays locked until every ticked item has a home.
• Already in that cost code - the same item (same price list item, or same name and unit) is already there, so it starts unticked. Tick it if you really want two.

Quantities come across correctly

The quantity comes with the item:

How the quantity is worked out	What the copy gets
Typed	The same typed quantity
Calc sheet	The calc sheet lines, so it works out the same
From another item, a formula, or a take-off	A typed quantity equal to the original’s figure - the preview says so, because the links to the other job’s items, formula or drawings cannot come with it

Wastage and rounding stay as they were, so the copied item’s quantity matches the original exactly. (Copy and paste in the Bill of Quantities between two jobs used to lose these quantities, leaving the copy at 0. Both now keep them.)

Products come with the item. Copying needs permission to add and edit items on the estimate you copy into; an estimate you can only look at cannot receive items.

Differences - why one costs more

Differences (next to Side by side and Stacked) puts the two estimates in one table, A on the left and B on the right:

• Each cost code with A’s total, B’s total and the difference. A cost code B does not have says not on B; B’s cost codes that A does not have come at the end.
• Each item next to its counterpart - paired by price list item, then item code, then name and unit, then name - with Why: quantity −6, rate +$2.00, switched off in B, only in A, only in B. The same item filed under a different cost code on each side shows as different cost code rather than one removed and one added.
• At the top, the totals and where the difference comes from: Quantities (including items switched on or off), Rates, Only in B (items added) and Only in A (items left out). The four add up to the difference exactly.

Only differences (on by default) hides the lines that match; Differences over $ hides the small ones; the search finds an item on either side.

• Excel downloads the rows you are looking at as a spreadsheet, with the cost code, both quantities, rates and totals, the difference and the reason.
• Print / PDF prints the table landscape - choose Save as PDF in the print window for a file.

Without See costs and rates the table shows quantities only.

Pricing a new job from an old one

Open the old job on the left and the new one on the right, turn on Keep in step, and work down the cost codes: tick what applies, copy, and watch the right-hand total build up against the old one.