adding BILL ITEMS 
This is the screen where most of your pricing work will be carried out. Fast Estimate has been designed to make it as easy as possible to perform all the major functions with the minimum of keystrokes, helping to keep you focused on the job of pricing.
Bills are organised in a hierarchical manner to allow you to structure your Schedule in a way that makes it easy to view, edit and print.
Key Features
- Multi-line item Descriptions
- A wide selection of schedule views for 'at-a-glance' pricing information
- Item Review flag to mark items for later checking
- Auto and manual page breaks
- Auto page numbering
- Graphic data views
- Structured layout
- Nested Dims (qty calculation) sheets
- Full page layout and font control
- 'Rogue' item support
- Full editing functions
- Copy items from/to your library
There are two main methods for adding items to the Bill Page. You can add them directly (with or without build up) or you can select existing items (or resources) from any of your libraries.
Adding an item directly on the Bill Page:
- Click on the Description cell of the empty row at the bottom of the current Bill Page to select. The text editor is automatically loaded and 5 lines of text are opened for your use (truncated on exiting).
- Type in a description for your example item e.g. Excavate pit for manhole n/e 1000mm deep. Press your Return key to save and move onto the next cell.
- Now enter a Unit for this item e.g. m3. Note that is changes the item from being a simple text item, to a fully rated item.
- Leave the Qty value for now, we'll add this later.
- We now have to apply a rate for this item. This is based on completing a single Unit of this task, in this example m3 of excavation.
- If time is limited we can simply type the rate directly into the Net Rate cell e.g. 10. This keeps the pricing very simple and quick. However it does not allow Fast Estimate to give us a complete resource requirements list at the end of the job.
- Now add a Qty for this item, say 100. The program than simply multiplies the Net Rate by the Qty to give us 1000. However note that the resource has been added simply as a Lump Sum, a 'catch all' type which will not offer a lot of useful detail later on.
For most people a little more sophistication is required in order to fully exploit the program features:
Adding an item selected from a library.
- Select the point where you want to insert the item (or the blank row at the end of the current page)
- Run the Select Items function (button or right-click menu) or Create Resource Item
- Select the appropriate tab
- This opens the Select form, ready to select the item(s) or resource(s) we need.
- Tag your items then Save & Close to return to the Bill Page, placing a copy of each item selected onto the page.
- You can now add a Qty to each item selected to fit the job requirements.
Note:
- Items selected from the Item Library are copies. This means that any changes made to the original in the library will not update the Schedule copy. The reverse is also true.
- The resources used in the copied item are of course also copies, so any price changes entered in the resource library will not update the Schedule Resource. Updating the Schedule Resources is discussed later.
Bill Page Functions
As you might expect in such an important table, Fast Estimate gives you a range of tools to help you complete the job with the minimum of fuss.
CUT / COPY / PASTE
Use these to copy or move single or groups of items within or between pages and bills.
The paste function on the Bill Page has some unique features. It offers the option of pasting an item complete, or pasting only part of the item such as the Rate Buildup. This is especially useful when you have typed in a number of items and their rates vary only slightly for each. You can price one of the items and paste only the Item Rate to the others and make the adjustment.
FIND (Ctrl+F)
As with most other screens, a handy Find feature lets you find item text in the currently loaded page (Use Search, Ctrl+S for wider searching)
MATCH TO LIBRARY ITEM
Allows you to copy a library rate to a bill item. Mostly used for imported, unrated bills. See Matching Items for more
CHANGE ITEM STATUS
This can be a useful tool if you make a mistake and enter a unit against a text-only item. With this, you can reverse it. Another useful function is the expansion of a composite item (made up of several simple items) into it's component parts.
TOGGLE REVIEW
Highlights the selected item as a reminder when you revisit this page that this item requires further consideration.
TOGGLE PAGE BREAK
Fast Estimate will automatically paginate your Schedule during preview/print. However if you want to force a break at any point (e.g. To mirror a client bill you have been supplied with) use this function to Insert/Undo a manual break.
Auto Page Break - These are inserted by Fast Estimate when it calculates that no more items can be added to the page. Displayed as a RED line after the last item on the page.
Manual Page Break - You can add/remove these at any time - just right click and select the Toggle Page Break and choose. Fast Estimate will automatically recalculate all auto page breaks to make sure you pages look the way you want them to. Manual breaks are displayed in BLUE.
To remove a manual page break simply right click on the item (below the blue line) and select the option. Fast Estimate may recalculate the position of forced (auto) page breaks.GoTo PAGE
When reviewing a large Schedule you can use this function to get straight to a specific page without scrolling.
RESEQUENCE PAGES
Use this function to change the order in which the Schedule is printed.
QUANTITY CALCULATION
This is covered in detail here.
N(et), G(ross), (P)rofit
These stand for (N)et, (G)ross and (P)rofit views for this Bill Page. If you have applied profit to the Schedule (See Schedule Profit) you can view the effect using these buttons. Profit is covered more fully later in this section.
Tips
- Build item rates directly onto the Bill Page or copy from your library - Enter them directly if you don't have time to consider library items.
- If you enter an item rate directly (i.e. no resources) then you will not of course get a meaningful resource breakdown for this Schedule. The value is simply added to a resource called 'Direct Rate' (Resource Type = Lump Sum).
- Apply font attributes using the Schedule Details form
- To save time when Browsing Schedules/Bills, double-click the item you want to load.
- To change an items position, use Copy / Paste on a single or group of items