Local Material and Labor Costs Database from 1build

Contractor Foreman is proud to partner with 1build.com, a leader in providing local material and labor costing to contractors across the United States.  The data provided by 1build will drastically improve the speed and accuracy in which your estimates are created.  If you have a suggestion on how we can improve the tool, please let us know.

During your Trial (and during the initial preview period), you will receive full access to the pricing database).  At the end of the Trial/Preview your access will be dependent upon the plan that you  previously selected.  View the Plans page for more details.  Please contact support@contractorforeman.com to upgrade.

Integration

To get started, go to Settings > Integration > 1build.  From there you will see the option to define the location and other required fields.  Once set, you are ready to go – it’s a simple as that.

Fields Available for Import

• Location: The location that should be used to obtain the proper material pricing.
• Cost Code
  • CSI: Uses the CSI division numbering system.  Ideal for commercial contractors.
  • NAHB: Uses the much shorter list created by the National Associated of Home Builders.  This is ideal for residential contractors.
  • None: Selecting this option is ideal if you have your own cost coding system.  When using this, you will need to manually assign an imported item to a cost code.
  • **If you select CSI or NAHB and the cost code does not already exists in your, the Parent and Child cost code will be created.
• Fields
  • Item Name: This is required and cannot be disabled.
  • Unit Cost: The cost of the item (not including any burden or labor rates).
  • Unit: The Unit of Measure selected at time of item import.
  • Description: A general description of the item and/or work to be performed.
  • Photo: A generic cover photo of the item.
  • Cost Code: A code used to properly job-cost your estimate and other project transactions.
  • Labor: Support for this function will be added later in the year.
• Options (not shown)
  • Show Assemblies: Support for this function will be added later in the year.
  • Show Templates: Support for this function will be added later in the year.

All Plans

All plans include access to the materials database.  This allows you to search for items to import into your Cost Items Database or directly into your Estimate.  If you live outside of the United States or if you do not want to use the provided pricing, there is still great value in pulling in these items into your account to maintain formatting consistency and to save time entering the data.

Basic & Standard Plans

All Basic and Standard plans include access to the materials database but the Unit Cost and Unit values are disabled and cannot be imported.  Time is money and we do think that you will easily see the value of moving to a plan where these values can be imported.

Plus & Pro & Unlimited Plans

These three plans include the ability to import the material pricing rate.  If you subscribe to one of these plans but you do not want the Unit Costs to be imported you can disable it from Settings > Integration.

Usage

Currently, usage is restricted to the website only and the ability to import items from the 1build database does not exists in the app.  If you think that this is a requirement that is needed, let us know.

• From within the Cost Items Database, click on the Action dropdown and click the Import from 1build line.
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• From within the Estimate, click on the Add Items dropdown within the related Section and click the Import from 1build option.
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• After doing so, you will see a popup similar to the one below.  Simply search for the item of interest and select the desired Unit value.  Many items offer several options (each, square foot, etc).
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• Select the item(s) to want to add to your Cost Items Database or Estimate and click the Import button.
• The view below shows what the item details look like after it has been imported into the Cost Items Database.
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  • If you previously defined Markup Defaults (Settings > Financial), the markup will be applied at time of import.

Source of Data

• Pricing within the 1build database comes from some of the most well-known home improvement and hardware stores across the United States.
• In the very near future, you will be able to select to provide pricing from the following suppliers;
  • Coming soon…

Additional Details

• Currently the photo is not being stored within the Estimate or Cost Items Database but support will be provided in a future update.
• Bulk pricing updates will be provided in the near future to ensure that your templates and Estimates in Bidding Status always have the most updated pricing.
• The 1build function will be rolled out to other modules across the system after additional feedback has been collected and improvements have been made.

How can we do this better?  Let us know.