Move Money Feature

Tutorial Video and Move Money explanation

Move Money

One of the most important functions in Estimating Link is the Move Money function.  It allows 
you to move revenue sources in order to take advantage of quantity overruns and/or under-runs and allows for advantageous positioning.

Whether you are bidding a lump sum or unit priced project there are certain things you can do to help fund and give you an advantage over your competition.

Let’s start out with what we have called advantageous positioning.  In every project whether 
it be lump sum or unit priced, there are items or phases of the job that have to be done first.  As a contractor, getting that first couple of pay estimates from a project can make the difference between using your money or the owner’s money to fund the rest of the job.

It makes good economic sense to move some of the money from the end of the project to the front.  Even in a lump sum project, the owner may request a proposed schedule of payment requests from you. They usually include a mobilization and demobilization which you, as an estimator, have included in Estimating Link as items with an estimated amount for each.

To access Move Money

There are three ways to access the Move Money feature in Estimating Link:

• On the Bid Sheet, click the Move Money Icon:
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• On the Bid Sheet, right click anywhere and select New Move Money:
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• On the Bid Sheet, go to Services > Move Money:
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Using one of the three options above, will display the Move Money window.

Advantageous Positioning

Using the Move Money function, we can take money from one Item and place it into another item without changing the total amount of our Bid. 

There are three ways of doing this:

1. By entering a minus amount in the Net change column
2. Putting a zero in the New markup amount
3. By putting a zero in the Percent column for the item we want to take the money out of.

After you've moved money, click apply and it will add it to the transaction log in the Transaction List of the Move Money window.

The transaction is now listed and if active, has changed the Unit Bid amounts on the Items involved in the Bid Sheet.  A # sign has been placed next to each Item change to indicate that the Move Money function was used on that Item.

Click Done to return to the Bid Sheet.

You can make as many of these transactions as needed and can do “what-if’s” by making any transaction inactive by un-checking the Active Box. 

Transactions can also be deleted by highlighting the transaction and clicking the Delete button.

Potential Windfall Profit for Loss

Next is using the Move Money to take advantage of the under-runs and overruns in Bid Quantities.  As explained earlier, the unit cost for any item is derived from the Take0ff quantity in the Item module. When on the Bid Sheet, the Bid Quantity is used to determine the Bid Item cost and Bid Item Total. 

If when the item is completed in the field and the Pay Takeoff Quantity turns out to be correct, the actual complete cost of the item should be what was calculated in the Item module.

This being the case, we are only going to get our margin.  This is what we call a windfall Loss.  Depending on the magnitude of the overruns and under-runs, we can have either a windfall Loss or profit. 

This figure is displayed for us in the Analysis.  Analysis can be accessed by clicking the Analysis icon on the Bid Sheet: 

It is also displayed for us in the Move Money window.

Once again we can use the Move Money function to enhance our Bid by taking the markup from the under-runs and putting it in Lump Sum item or if possible an overrun item.

This is where the tough decisions are made.  If you are sure of your Takeoff Quantities and that the percentages of Overhead and Profit on the project costs are all that is necessary, you could deduct the windfall profit from your Bid and increase your chances of being the low bidder.

Please use this with caution as it is only as good as your estimate of Pay Takeoff Quantities.