Summary of Benchmark’s Main Features

General features and benefits

lite

full

Easy to use

Yes

Yes

Central database

Yes

Yes

User definable codes

Yes

Yes

Automatically saves your estimate data

Yes

Yes

Windows based

Yes

Yes

Project Browser which lists all your estimates/quotes and allows you to easily find previous jobs: includes a Quick Find feature to search by Quote Number, Title, Estimator, Client, and more

Yes

Yes

Central libraries of data

lite

full

Resource Library for your Labour, Plant, Material and Subcontract costs

Yes

Yes

Item Library for the build-ups of your standard services and/or products.  An Item (sometimes known as an activity or recipe) is made up of a collection of resources

Yes

Yes

Section Library to store your standard Sections (work breakdown structure)

Yes

Yes

Client Library for your client's details

Yes

Yes

Subcontractor Library for your subcontractor’s and supplier’s details

Yes

Yes

Conditions Library for your standard and special conditions that can appear on your quotes

Yes

Yes

Estimator Library for your Benchmark users’ login, password and access levels, and other details

Yes

Yes

Takeoff Sheet Library to store your standard quantity takeoff sheets

Yes

Estimating your Direct Costs – standard features

lite

full

The ability to add Sections, Items and Resources from your libraries, and be able to edit this information within the estimate

Yes

Yes

The ability to add project specific Sections, Items and Resources to your estimate

Yes

Yes

Copy and paste Sections and Items from one estimate to another 

Yes

Yes

The ability to load a Bill of Quantities (schedule of items) from Excel, and save your bid (submission) rates electronically into the original Excel file

Yes

Yes

Allocate  - gives you the ability to allocate one or many Items from your Item Library to an Item in a Project

Yes

Yes

Section Production Rates to quickly and accurately change the production rate for all Items in a Project

Yes

Yes

Item Production Rates to quickly and accurately change the production rate of an Item

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Variables for designating depths, widths, heights, areas, densities, etc. at several levels of an estimate which can then be used in your Item and Resource quantity calculations (see next point)

Yes

Item and Resource Calculator function – store calculations (including text strings) with your Items and Resources.  You can add the Item Quantity, Production Rate, Crew Size and/or Variables to your calculations.  When you change these in your estimate, your calculations are automatically updated

Yes

Yes

Complete function so you can keep control over which Sections and Items you have finished estimating

Yes

Yes

Ability to duplicate entire estimates and set up standard project templates

Yes

Yes

Rate Only Items and Provisional Sums Items

Yes

Yes

Small Job Factor

Yes

Yes

Cartage Calculator

Yes

Yes 

Cost Check - updates previous estimates with current rates from the Resource Library in a matter of seconds

Yes

Yes

Variations

Yes

Yes

Estimating your Direct Costs  -  power estimating features

lite

full

Routines for pricing repetitive works consistently and accurately

Yes

Yes

Sub Items (composite resources)

Yes

Subcontractor Manager – issue requests for prices and import quotations from Subcontractors electronically.  Compare quotes in a comparison screen and automatically update your estimate with your selected subcontractor

Yes

Perform Quantity Takeoff’s in your estimate using one of your takeoff sheet templates from the Template Sheet Library or by creating project specific takeoff sheets.  Benchmark stores these takeoffs in your estimate

Yes

Auto Allocate – bid schedules of items over 52.5% faster, whilst retaining consistency and accuracy, with this amazing feature

Yes

Resource Rate Change—in the one screen you can view all resources used in your estimate and make project specific price changes without changing the default rate in the Resource Library.  You can make changes by rate or %, and search by subcontractor/supplier

Yes

Power Routine for bidding annual and longer-term maintenance and facilities management tenders 

option

option

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

lite

full

Yes

Yes

Submission reports including Quotations, Rate Only Quotations, Schedule of Rates and a Tender Letter

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Word® quote reports so you can customise your company’s quote format in a Word document

Yes

Quote with Options report with many user-defined options

Yes

Yes

Exports to Excel—Export key data into Microsoft Excel®, with reports such as Resources by Cost Code, Resources by Subcontractor/Supplier, Project Review/Analysis, Resources by Item and Schedule of Items

Yes

Yes

Direct Cost reports including a project summary, bill of quantities, bill of materials, detailed resource listings per item, resource listings per group and cost code, and resource usage sorted by cost and quantity

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Overhead Section reports

Yes

Yes

Reports can be viewed on screen prior to printing, saved to HTML and copied and pasted into Word or Excel

Yes

Yes

Reports can be generated as a PDF document (excluding Word and Excel documents)

Yes

Compatible with external reporting systems including Crystal Reports and Cognos

Yes

Yes

Marketing Analysis, Follow Up and Integrated Email/Fax

lite

full

Dynamic Marketing Analysis reports (won/lost/pending, reason for loss, competitor comparison, forward order reporting) 

Yes

Follow Up feature to remind your estimators which quotes need to be followed up on each day 

Yes

Email (as a PDF) or fax your quotes directly from your Benchmark estimate to improve quote turnaround time and help you win more work

Yes

Interfacing with other business systems

lite

full

Standard export to Microsoft Project, Suretrak and Primavera

Yes

Yes

Exports to your other business systems like Projection Scenario, Oracle, Timberline and Microsoft Great Plains

Yes

Yes

Resource-based export to Microsoft Project (2003) for project scheduling, cash flow forecasting and resource planning

option

option

Cost Codes and Cost Code exports to Microsoft Excel for importing into other systems

Yes

Yes

ODBC Driver so other systems can access and extract Benchmark's data

Yes

Yes

Import facility allows you to electronically import Resource rates (price lists), Clients and other data into your Benchmark data file

Yes

Yes

Progress Claims (Valuations)

lite

full

Generate fast and accurate Progress Claims directly from your estimate to save time and eliminate retyping of data.  Do your claims by % or Quantity complete

option

Yes

Multi User

lite

full

Full multi-user (requires multiple licenses), you can even have a team working on the one estimate at the one time

Yes

Yes

System settings and security

lite

full

User login and password control

Yes

Yes

The ability to control which users can access certain functionality and all libraries

Yes

Yes

The ability to set up authorisation limits for each estimator

Yes

Yes

The ability to set up default company settings that are applied to each estimate, like markup %, overhead % and default quote introduction text