Construction and solar estimating with visible calculation traces
Compile quantities, rates, build-ups, allowances, and markup into a priced estimate other teams can inherit—without inventing missing quotes or geotechnical facts.
Who uses it
Estimators and preconstruction leads who own the bid. Commercial managers who review it. Procurement and project-controls leads who later have to buy and track the issued quantity.
The practical task
Build the estimate from quantities, quotes, production assumptions, and allowances your team has reviewed. Keep each cost component available for commercial review.
What you do and produce
You enter quantities and rates, keep cost composition visible, and issue a revision. The output is a priced baseline with revision history — not a detached workbook.
How that output helps another team
Procurement RFQs the issued quantity. Project Controls inherits the same structure as budget. Execution can record installed work in the same units. Your team issues the revision before the next discipline uses that scope.
Example
On the public Red Mesa Solar demonstration, foundation line EST-FND-012 is 12,400 EA at $218, for a line total of $2,703,200 in Estimate Rev 04 (USD). That figure is this package, not whole-project CAPEX. See the product tour.
A compiled total can be opened into formula, quantity, rate, and revision. Explain This Number is available to invited users; it is not the default estimating workspace for every customer. See Explain This Number and Why estimate traceability matters.
Next step
See module pricing, or read Estimating documentation.
What an estimate can contain
Depending on the method used for an item, a compiled cost can include:
- materials and related conversions (yield, scrap, BOM explosion)
- labour / crew and production
- equipment
- subcontract or vendor-quoted scope
- allowances that stay labeled as allowances
- freight, galvanizing, and duration-based indirects
- contingency and escalation as distinct adjustments
- markup kept separate from cost, producing a sell price
Not every line uses every component. An allowance is not a measured production item, even when both show a dollar total.
Why solar estimating is a special case
The public tour uses solar to show how the workflow handles detailed quantities. Solar quantities often start as geometry: tables, rows, foundation posts, steel. GeoLab and Solar Layout Studio feed reviewed quantities and foundation assumptions into this estimate after a person issues them.
Read Why solar estimating breaks at scale.
Review and responsibility
Estimating assistance—including document extraction or suggested mappings—does not make totals automatically correct. Human judgment remains required for quotes, productivity, contingency, and whether an allowance is honest. There is no unrestricted public API that exposes every estimate object.