crux

GC pack · Bid workflow

The BASE BID estimate

The BASE BID workbook, at trade-package level, on your company's template, cited line by line and checked after every write.

The BASE BID workbook is the spine of a GC bid and your decision record. It is a bid-assembly sheet, not a takeoff: one line is one subcontract bid package. You own every number in it; crux lays it out, keeps it cited, and never breaks the template.

Which template

crux builds on the first of these it finds:

  1. A template you uploaded in Settings > Templates and confirmed.
  2. Your company's own template from your company layer.
  3. The GC pack's default (GC Estimate Template.xlsx). Its starter rates (supervision, insurance and taxes, profit and overhead, local tax, builder's risk) are placeholders: crux sets each from your settings, your company's knowledge or your answer, with its basis.

A company template must keep the BASE BID layout (sheet BASE BID, the same markup, bond and totals formulas). If it does not, crux says in one line what differs and builds on the pack default unless you say otherwise.

Build it

  1. Say "set up the estimate". crux first settles the contract structure (single or multi-prime, which divisions are yours), the wage and tax rules, and the general conditions.
  2. It shows you the division list: every division in your scope, one line per subcontract bid package (usually 40 to 70 lines), each with its spec section. On multi-prime work, the work you owe the other primes (cutting and patching, firestopping, access panels) gets its own group. Say yes, or what to change.
  3. crux builds the workbook in the job binder: Estimate\<job> - BASE BID.xlsx.

At build:

  • every line is $0 until quoted, with its citation in column H (spec section, addendum item or sheet); a line crux cannot cite becomes an RFI, not a line;
  • allowances go in at face value from the bid form, cited;
  • the contract time that drives supervision comes from the documents or from you, never a guess;
  • general-conditions notes sit on the GC rows with their Division 01 citations.

Numbers going in

ColumnHolds
CThe carried sub's or supplier's name, or a tag: BUDGET, <sub> VERBAL, <sub> BUDGET, IN <sub> ABOVE, NONE FOUND
DSubcontract $
EMaterial $ (sales tax applies)
FYour own labor $ (burden applies)
HNotes and the citation, for example sub-quote <company> <date>

Tell crux in plain words: "carry Sub P at 412,000 for drywall", "change the P&O to 6% (company practice)". crux edits the workbook surgically: the formulas, the bond table and iterative calculation stay intact, and every change keeps a timestamped backup in Estimate\Backups. A verbal or budget number is tagged so it never reads as firm.

Careful: Do not save the workbook from another tool while crux is working in it. crux only ever patches the cells it was asked to change.

The checks

  • Workbook check after every write: the template survived (formulas, bond lookup, totals chain, P&O).
  • Estimate check (Estimate Check.md in the binder): every carried row against the quotes, the carried sub against the leveling selection, wrong-column and tax problems, and the budget-grade rows. A difference from the leveling pick is your one-line call.

Next

On bid day the last numbers go in through the same tools. After award, buyout reads the final workbook but never changes it.