How Do Change Orders and Alternates Work in Accubid Anywhere?
Electrical estimating doesn’t stop when the original bid is submitted.
Projects change.
Owners issue revisions. Engineers modify drawings. Contractors request pricing. Scope gets added and removed.
A good estimating workflow needs a way to manage those changes without losing control of the original estimate.
Keep Changes Organized
The fundamental objective of change management is separation.
You need to understand:
What was originally included?
What was added?
What was removed?
What does the change actually cost?
When those items are mixed together without a clear structure, reviewing and defending change pricing becomes unnecessarily difficult.
Alternates Are Different From Base Scope
Alternates should also be identifiable rather than simply buried inside the base estimate.
That allows the estimator to understand the financial impact of each option without rebuilding the estimate.
Good organization becomes especially important when several alternates or revisions are being evaluated simultaneously.
Preserve the Estimate’s History
An estimate is not just a final number.
It is a record of how that number was developed.
When scope changes, preserving that history gives the estimator a defensible trail showing what changed and why.
That can become extremely valuable months later when someone asks how a particular price was developed.
Process Matters More Than the Feature
Accubid Anywhere makes these processes seamless, packaging Estimates, contracts and change orders all together at the project level. No more losing track of where everything is for a given project
Software provides tools for managing changes.
The contractor still needs a consistent process for using them.
Naming conventions, documentation, estimate organization and internal procedures should all support the same objective:
Make every change understandable to someone other than the person who originally priced it.
