Page 14 - 2018 National Home Improvement

2018 National Home Improvement Estimator, All Rights Reserved Page 10

Once an estimate is finished in the National Estimator program and saved to computer disk, press Ctrl
on your keyboard and tap the letter J to convert the estimate into a proposal in Job Cost Wizard. You
can't make changes in the Job Cost Wizard screen. But it's easy to toggle back to the National
Estimator program (press Alt and tap the Tab key), make a change, and then press Control-J once
again.

Job Cost Wizard offers dozens of choices on what you show and don't show in written proposals. Your
bids can be long (full description for everything in the estimate) or short (only a summary of each
category). You can show or hide labor and material cost detail. You can show or hide markup and profit.

Once work begins, you'll want to monitor job expenses to be sure actual costs remain consistent with
estimated costs. If you use QuickBooks Pro to pay bills and figure payroll, let QuickBooks do the
comparisons for you. Job Cost Wizard exports the proposal to QuickBooks, where you can prepare
progress invoices and track expenses against estimates.

The National Estimator program lets you change anything in the costbook or even add your own
estimated costs. Make the National Home Improvement Estimator your collection point for all estimating
and pricing information. Anything you add to the costbook shows up in red and can be migrated to later
editions of this manual when available. The National Home Improvement Estimator starts out as your
most useful estimating reference. What you add to the costbook will make it even more valuable.