As a roofing contractor, you probably already use software as part of your work. For example, if you use spreadsheets to put together estimates, you probably spend quite a lot of your time on that every time you start preparing for a new potential project.
However, a surprisingly high proportion of roofers still complete most (if not all) of this process manually, by hand, on sheets of paper. Even if spreadsheets come into play later on, the early stages involve pens, pencils, calculators and lots of duplication of work from one sheet to another.
RapidBid offers another way. Our software includes specialist digital tools that work perfectly for roofing projects, making the whole task much easier and quicker to complete. You could easily save a significant amount of time, and that’s likely to make all the difference when it comes to your profits.
If you’re interested in learning more based on that promise, keep reading and we’ll explain exactly how it works. If you’re ready to see it for yourself (which we highly recommend) skip ahead to book your free demonstration and one of our team will walk you through it personally.
“I have a mate who is an electrical contractor and he was telling me that he spent three weeks pricing a $200,000 job by hand. I told him that with my estimating and PDF take off software, I started a $700,000 job yesterday and finished it today!”
Ashley AJDR
“As much as I would hate to help any of my competitors, I have to completely endorse RapidBid in all that it offers for a business. Our quotation rate has increased from 50 to over 200 quotations per month.”
On Tap Plumbing
“RapidBid is a lifesaver. It’s so easy to use, I just open the drawings and within minutes I have scaled, marked and priced up all my materials and labour. It has increased the speed that we can win work four times over, at least.”
AL Contract Services
“At last, take-offs for the 21st century! After years spent marking up drawings with highlighters and producing takeoff sheets, this is a revolution in estimating. Just can’t live without it – I now takeoff five projects in the time it used to take to do just one.”
MJL Contracts
“Now, overall from top to bottom, RapidBid’s software saves me about 70% of my time, and that makes an amazing difference. Quotes that took me five days before now take me less than two days, and I’ve only been estimating since January.”
JKM Contracts
“I work as an estimator Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5, and your software and support is first class. I can takeoff and price well over 10 drawings in less than an hour, this used to take me half a day before! I just love how simple it is.”
Wiltons
We used to do takeoffs with a scale ruler and a pencil which was very time consuming, and now we have a much quicker takeoff time. We only spend around 1 or 2 hours doing takeoffs with RapidBid’s software and before it used to take us about 5 or 6 hours.
AG Contracting
“We used to have a three or four-process estimate which was over-complicated, but now we have a simple, one-process estimate. We definitely recommend!”
Pure Services Group
“Time saving is the biggest advantage for us by far. RapidBid saved us about 80% of our time and increased our productivity 50%.”
Environ Group
“Our monthly quotation output has increased from 60 to in excess of 180 quotations per month. That is a staggering 300% increase.”
D. R. Matthews
The problem with the old fashioned, manual approach is that it takes so much time. We’ve spoken to a lot of contractors over the years, from all types of markets including roofing, and one consistent complaint is that estimating simply takes too long. That’s the key problem we wanted to address with RapidBid.
Time is obviously vital for any business, but for roofers and other contractors the effect of wasted time is particularly clear. Time spent struggling with large, complex drawings at your desk is time you won’t be able to spend on site i.e. actually getting paid by your client. Reducing that time therefore has a direct effect on how much money you can make.
Even if you use spreadsheets to assist with the estimating process (which is probably a given in the digital age), this kind of software isn’t build to handle your specific task. It can be done, of course, but it’s needlessly complicated in most cases, and doesn’t get any quicker no matter how many times you repeat the same process. That’s another thing we learned from contractors and considered when putting together our software. So how does it work?
Starting from the beginning of the process that contractors typically go through on every project, we decided to create a piece of software that would enhance or automate every possible step. RapidBid is built with your workflow in mind so it can help you optimise the entire process, making your business model instantly more cost-effective.
Taking it step by step, here are a few of the key ways in which RapidBid builds on the way you already work as a roofer, and simply makes it easier for you.
1. Selecting your files
Firstly, when you have a ton of paper drawings to sort through, it’s unlikely that you’ll even be able to get started within the first few minutes. Organising files on-screen is much easier with RapidBid, because you can preview the digital copies of your drawings and quickly identify which ones you want to open.
2. Focusing on what’s important
As a roofer, only certain parts of each drawing will be relevant to you when you complete your take-off. If your file has layers built into it, the software will allow you to show or hide these so you can find what you’re looking for more easily.
3. Automatic detection and counting
If you need to highlight or count every copy of a particular item on your drawing, there’s no need to do it by eye. The software can take care of it automatically, you just need to select what you’re looking for. This is a major time-saver that also helps ensure your figures are accurate.
4. A powerful toolkit for measurements
One of the most important features for roofers is the ability to draw custom shapes when you need to measure lengths, areas and angles. RapidBid offers flexible tools on-screen so you don’t need to manually calculate these – just a few clicks will generate the answers you need.
5. Cut down on unnecessary duplication
Working with all your figures in one place, on one screen, is a huge advantage compared to the alternative method. It means you don’t have to continuously enter the same numbers all over again, or check and double-check that you’ve transferred data correctly from manual take-off papers to your final estimate.
The great thing about a specialised platform like RapidBid is that all your needs have been anticipated. We’ve put a huge amount of research, development and continuous improvement into the software already, and it’s only getting better with time thanks to suggestions from our users.
This means that roofers, for example, will find all our intuitively-designed features are very easy for non-experts to pick up quickly. The tools in offer within the program are flexible enough to be used on all kinds of projects, but powerful enough to get the results you need very quickly. The more you use the software, the faster you’ll get.
Aside from flexibility, RapidBid’s unique and user-friendly interface offers a few more advantages when compared to other types of estimating software you might come across:
On the subject of our team, we’d love the opportunity for one of our colleagues to walk you through the software. It’s the best way for you to not only see the software on your own screen, but also have the chance to ask questions about how it can help your roofing business.
Your time is valuable, so we’ll leave the decision up to you when it comes to booking your free demonstration. Just click the button below to see a list of all the dates and times we have available, then select whichever one you prefer. At the given time, we’ll be in touch to connect remotely to show you the software.
Please note: With the free demo, there’s never any obligation to pay for anything or even download the free trial. We’ll leave it to you to decide whether your business could benefit from the time savings offered by RapidBid.
