Replies

1. 
   Snort | Oct 27, 2005 12:50am | #1

   Hey Tom,

   I'm pretty much of an idiot when it comes to using the computer for anything other than a toy<G>

   That said, I use QuickBooksPro for invoicing and estimating. Quicken for banking, and I make spreadsheets in AppleWorks or Word...but I still do a lot with pencil and paper...and I still can't figure out what widgets are for<G>

   "what's in a name?" d'oh!

2. 
   JerraldHayes | Oct 27, 2005 06:35pm | #2

   tomwright I do have a FileMaker based program that was designed on and runs on the Mac platform although it will also run on Windows too (thanks for the plug Ben). However since you wrote that you were looking for something "that is fairly user friendly" the "Silver" version of the program while simple to use may have too much depth for your taste at this time.

   What I mean is while estimating is pretty simple in that you select something (either a preset unit cost, a material cost or subcontractors price from library where they are kept and organized and just plug them into your estimate the 360Difference Silver program is capable of much more than that in that it also allows you to collect and store a lot of other information too such as site photos, project contacts, to do list items and more.

   We've been planning to make a "Bronze" edition of the program which shares the same data architecture as the Silver one but has a much simpler interface but we just haven't gotten around to that just yet although it looks as though we will finally be getting to that soon. This summer we found that there were quite a few contractors who were still using my program I called the Simple Estimate Worksheet from 1998-2002 even though we gave them Silver as a free upgrade. We don't sell or support the Simple Estimate Worksheet anymore since the data architecture is different but like I've just said we will have a Bronze version of 360Difference which will look and function the same as that older program but will have the newer data architecture so it will be scaleable so that as a user grows and wants more capabilities there will be an upgrade path that will persevere the records the user has already built over time.

   But hey feel free to take a look at the Silver program and tell me how you think I should scale it back. We need that kind of feedback.

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