Not many users top Jim Madden in experience and expertise with B2W Software for estimating, and he shared his thoughts in a recent video on how B2W Estimate has helped his team generate thousands of winning bids.

“What make it one of the leading products out there is the availability to customize it and tailor it to the jobs that we bid,” the Chief Estimator for Palmer Paving in Massachusetts explains. Madden ticks off a long list of key features and benefits of B2W Estimate, including speed, accuracy and integration with the B2W Track field tracking application. He also emphasizes how automated DOT bidding helps his company.

Palmer turns out more than 500 estimates a year. Jobs range from under $100,000 to the $20-30 million range. Some bids are turned around in 20 minutes, according to Madden. Software saves his team a lot of time on larger, more complex bids that are the norm, allowing them to plug in items, crews and tasks from a centralized database rather than starting from scratch each time.

One was a $22 million dollar bid in late 2021 for a project on the Massachusetts Turnpike, near the company’s main facility. “Being able to bid and win jobs like this and really have control over the costs as we see them is a key to our success,” says Madden.

Automated DOT bidding

That Massachusetts Turnpike job illustrates the advantages of B2W Estimate for bidding on DOT work. The software comes pre-loaded with the pay items that each state requires on its bid forms, including item numbers, descriptions and units of measure. Contractors can populate the items they bid on frequently in advance with their own costs. When estimators import the electronic bid form from the state, the software searches that internal estimating database and copies items that match into the estimate automatically.

“B2W Estimate is great for DOT bidding because it’s so automated,” according to Madden. “We have all the DOT items in our B2W item database so, as we bring the items in from the state’s Bid Express application, those items come through our item database. All of the tasks and crews and everything come all the way through.”

Free from looking up and entering items manually, estimators can instead move right to the more strategic work of reviewing and modifying estimates. When they’re ready, they export bids easily from B2W Estimate to a CSV file for uploaded to the state system.

The fast, seamless process buys valuable time. “We’ve been able to make changes two minutes before the bid time and export it, upload it, and get it in on time with that change in there,” says Madden.