The new Alternates feature in DESTINI Estimator construction estimating software allows you to organize, manage, and report on alternates quicker and easier.
There are a few differences in how the new Alternates user interface works in DESTINI Estimator:
The Summary
The Alternates Summary page serves as a landing page for creating the embedded estimates/alternates and a way to code and view high-level information about all of the alternates included in the project.
The Settings
The Settings inside of Alternates gives you the option to code the Alternates with three custom properties you can use to group, filter, and sort your estimates in the Summary.
Status Bar
By default, everything you add is going to be automatically classified as pending status. If you want to change that from pending to accepted, click the ‘accepted’ button and the Alternate will be included on the project totals for your cost.
Fee Table
The fee table has a significant change in the way it works and operates. The first part is the base estimate. This is where your base estimate fees are built. You build them on the right-hand pane the same way you do in Estimator currently.
The key part, though, is whenever you go down to the Alternates themselves, you can choose what type of fee you want to change on a particular job.
By default, everything goes to the base; however, if you want to make it a custom fee, change the drop-down to ‘custom’ and turn fees on or off. You can also add or delete fees specific to the Alternate.
Fee on Fee and circular fees are possible in the customer Alternate fee structure just as they are in the Base Estimate.
This powerful new fee table functionality allows you to customize your fees on each individual Alternate and makes sure that your base fees also are always calculated just on what you want it to.
Reporting and Dashboards
The new Beck Tech Standard Reports will report the alternates in this new format and this new breakdown.
You will be able to report fees for the specific Alternates as needed.
Your report will break the Alternates out with a project total with the option of reporting a lump sum or show the detail for the direct costs and the fees.
Summaries will show every Base Estimate item, and all the Accepted Alternates will be included in the dashboard calculations, as well.
The following video DESTINI Estimator tutorial demonstrates how to add Alternates as well as some of the detail features of Alternates inside DESTINI Estimator.
