Estimating

Overview

BOS Enterprise provides various Estimating models such as:

• General Estimates

• Estimate Types

Settings

General Settings

Navigation: Main Menu > Setup > Settings > General (tab)

ℹ️ These settings apply to all estimates. The defaults settings can be changed on the estimate.

• Estimating > Default: Markup on Estimates (%): Field to type a default markup.

• Estimating > Default: Roundup (R/U) for Materials: Field to type a rounding amount.

• Estimating > Price Rounding: The options are:

  • Don't round off

  • Round Selling Price to nearest major currency unit

  • Round Unit Price to nearest minor currency unit

Cost Summary

• Positive Adjustments (Markups) to items in the Estimate are added to the Value-Added indicator, and negative Adjustments (Discounts) to items are deducted from the Costs.

Estimates in Sell Price Transactions

Estimates can be used in transactions that use Selling Prices, e.g. Quotations. The Estimate can update the Transaction Item in two ways:

• Cost Price only: 

  • The Estimate only updates the Cost Price to the transaction item, and the User can override the Selling Price on the Transaction Item. 

  • When an item is added to a transaction (from the Items master), the Sell Price value on the Item determines how the transaction is updated when it is converted to an Estimate.

    •  If Sell Price = Manual, then it will adopt this mode, and the transaction Selling Price is unchanged when the item is converted to an estimate. 

    • Note: In this mode, only the Cost portion of the Estimate is updated to the transaction. The Markup/Sell Price on the Estimate is ignored.

• Cost and Sell Price:

  • The Estimate updates both the Cost and Sell Price of the Transaction Item. 

  • The Selling Price on the Estimate can be changed.

When creating an estimate, there is an option to update the price. Click Actions (button) of the estimate's Pricing tab > Update Cost Price only to the Transaction Item. This option is only available when the transaction uses Selling Prices.

Actions (button)

The following options are available by clicking Actions (button):

• Revert to default Adjustments: Changes the adjustments to those on the item. Adjust adjustments for materials, services, and outwork when using Estimate Types.

• Debug Parameters: Applies if formulas are used to calculate certain fields. Opens an interface where the formulas can be viewed or edited.

• Expand all Items: Expands composite items into their individual materials.

• Update from Costing: Removes and recreates the items from the linked costing. This feature also checks for a linked Estimate Costing since February 2026. (Previously only Item Costings were supported).

• Delete Inactive Items: Deletes items that have been set to inactive since the estimate was created.

Context Menu Actions

The following features, where available, can be accessed by right clicking an entry on the Input tab.

• Set Status: Select one of these options:

  • Active

  • Active - Not Adjusted

  • Budget

  • Budget - Not Adjusted

  • Inactive (Not added to the Estimate Total)

• Copy Service/Material: Copies the entry to a new line.

• Change Service/Material: Allows a different item to be selected. 

• View/Edit Note: Allows a note to be created, edited, or displayed.

• View/Edit Specification: Displays the entry's specification.

• Convert priced to Fixed/Unit Price: Divides the fixed price by the number of units to determine a unit price or multiplies the unit price by the number of units and converts it to a fixed price.

• Add Custom: Adds a row with a custom item as selected from this list:

  • Material

  • Assembly

  • Service

• Move Up: Moves the entry one line higher.

• Move Down: Moves the entry one line lower.

• Open linked Item: Opens the item's record.

• View Item Summary: Displays a summary of the item's record and transactions on the right.

• Delete Assembly & Move Child Items to Parent Assembly:  Removes unnecessary Assemblies which makes scheduling difficult (e.g. an Assembly for Services nested in another Assembly). 

  • Note: A stored procedure has been added to remove all the Assemblies for an Item in a Transaction Type from the back end (e.g. all the Service Assemblies in the Costing Module - EST_DELETE_ASSEMBLY_ALL).

• Delete: Deletes the clicked entry.

Tech Note: The field VATITEMS.ESTSETPRICEID is used for this functionality - 1 = Cost Price only; 0 = Cost and Sell Price.  (Default)