Comsense Estimating

I've been using Comsense for the last 3 years. It has a bit of a learning curve...more, in my opinion, than Avaware...but it is a great program once you learn your way through it. In the quoting stage, I do all the HM doors & frames, wood doors, and all the prep work for them manually (on paper). It takes a good bit of time to get that info in Comsense…at least fully & correctly…so I’m faster with a pen on that. I only enter that info in estimating if I'm already sure I've got the job.

However, I always enter the hardware sets in Comsense in Estimating. Every job. Once I get 3 or 4 sets in there, I can just click on the items that are the same in other sets and they pop right in. I only have to create items I haven’t used yet, as I go along.

I find the hardware sets actually saves me a lot of time. I can print a “Product Summary”, which is a full list of each Hardware Item I’m using including the quantities of each. I send this to Allegion when I ask for special discounts (along with my manual HM list prices). I also use the completed Hardware Sets print out when I’m listing all my prep work on paper (panic preps, closer reinforcements, deadlock preps, etc…all the items are there that you have to prep for) and I also send along the Hardware Sets with the quote to the GC. It shows exactly what we are supplying as far as hardware and includes all the openings #’s we are supplying too.

Comsense also prices every item out with list prices. Once I get my discounts points from Allegion, I enter them in and within a few minutes I have our exact total hardware cost.