Originally published on 01/19/2021

Improve your construction bid templates with Automatic Calculations

As the construction industry embraces the many advantages of digital solutions, it’s critical that your operation keep pace. Many areas of the construction industry can benefit from digital solutions, such as incorporating a digital construction site safety checklist or digitizing a construction invoice template to enhance customer professionalism. However, one area often jeopardized by outdated business tools, like paper forms, is the bidding process. Relying on pen and paper to complete construction bids, estimates, and proposals often results in data entry errors, spelling mistakes, illegible documents, and a variety of other issues that can slow, disrupt, or impede the bidding process. Digital form platforms, like GoFormz, provide a simple solution to the manual data entry process. With digital forms, your construction bid templates can easily be equipped with powerful fields and features to help accelerate and refine the data entry process.

One of the more powerful features that can be leveraged within your digital construction bid templates is Automatic Calculations, which can be easily added to your form fields to calculate totals, taxes, and more automatically. For example, Automatic Calculations could be added to the ‘Cost’ column of a Labor & Materials Table field, and used to sum the total cost of labor and materials estimated for a job, including taxes, discounts, and more.

Strike While the Iron Is Hot

With instant calculations, bid estimates can now be completed directly from a client’s location, eliminating the need for return trips to the office. When a prospective client asks for an estimate, going back to the office for calculations can cause unnecessary delays, jeopardizing your bid. Automatic calculations allow your team to input figures into digital forms and instantly generate totals, speeding up form completion and customer communication without sacrificing accuracy.

Reduce Human Error

Automatic calculations can accurately complete totals, incorporate tax rates, deduct discounts, and more. Let's face it: not everyone is good at math. Manual calculations often lead to miscalculations, causing miscommunications, customer frustration, and paperwork delays. Using automatic calculations in your digital construction bid templates eliminates the need for manual math, providing highly accurate totals faster.

Improving Data Integrity

Accurate calculations protect the integrity of your data collection, ensuring only correct information is submitted. Calculations within your digital construction forms eventually reach your data collection systems. Miscalculations can compromise your database's integrity. Digital forms help sanitize incoming data, ensuring it is highly accurate before reaching your database and systems of record.

How GoFormz Users Leverage Automatic Calculations

• Oscar W. Larson: Oscar W. Larson, a provider of contracting solutions across various industries, conducts energy audits at customer sites. These audits require sales representatives to complete documents detailing kilowatt and cost savings from replacing light bulbs and using alternative energy sources. With digital forms, calculations are instantly performed once figures are added, eliminating manual math and return trips to the office. The finalized document can be signed by the customer directly from the device, speeding up approvals and allowing Oscar Larson representatives to secure sales more effectively. Read the full case study here >

• Municipal Well and Pump: Municipal Well and Pump, a water well design contractor, was using paper forms to complete critical field paperwork. Leveraging Automatic Calculations, the field crew is able to calculate pump water levels, totals, and final calculations within an instant of completing forms, streamlining field data. Read the full case study here >

Whether you want to use digital forms for a hot work permit or a safety training program, GoFormz is your one-stop shop for all your digital transformation needs. Sign up for a free 14-day risk-free trial and see how quickly you can upscale your educational institution today!