Estimating overview

The estimating workspace is the commercial home for a project. It is where quantities, rates, assemblies, allowances, markups, and scenarios are compiled into a priced estimate that other teams can inherit.

Infrenta’s estimating engine is built around a calculation graph: each value has a stable identity, dependencies, and a trace. That is the opposite of a spreadsheet cell whose formula is easy to overwrite and hard to audit later.

What the workspace is for

Estimating is used to:

• organize cost items against a project
• bind quantities and units to rates
• compile materials, crew, equipment, production, freight, galvanizing, and indirects where those methods apply
• keep cost, markup, and sell price semantically separate
• compare scenarios
• inspect a number through Explain This Number when that inspector is enabled for the account
• retain revision history instead of saving parallel workbooks

How it connects to other workspaces

Layout table counts and structural quantities can feed estimating. GeoLab foundation assumptions can become commercial assumptions. Approved estimate revisions can become procurement package baselines and forecast inputs for Project Controls.

Those handoffs only work if teams approve a revision rather than emailing a detached spreadsheet.

What estimating does not do by itself

The engine will not invent a geotechnical recommendation, a supplier quote, or a production rate you have not provided. Incomplete inputs produce incomplete or lower-quality results. Treat gaps as estimate-health issues, not as AI filling in the blanks.

Next pages

• Estimate structure
• Cost build-ups
• Markups and adjustments
• Estimate revisions
• Sources and quantities