Bidfident for telecom cabinet installers
Estimating software for cabinet installs
When the job is cabinets, Bidfident prices each one by the each: the pad set level, the cabinet set and secured, grounding, conduit stubs and fibre terminations. The boom truck is charged only for the hours it lifts, not the whole day of crew time. Power to the cabinets is an electrical subtrade, and supervision and traffic control run by the week.
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Sound familiar?
A cabinet price buried in the labour
Cabinets cost far more than the time to set them, and a spreadsheet row mixes the two. In Bidfident each line has its own material price, hours per unit and equipment, totalled separately as you go.
The boom truck billed for the whole day
The truck lifts the pad and the cabinet, then waits while the crew grounds and terminates. In Bidfident the boom truck gets its own hours per cabinet, apart from the crew's.
Electrical quotes that don't line up
Power to the cabinets comes back from two electricians in two formats. In Bidfident the bids sit side by side, the lowest is flagged, and you carry the one you pick.
How Bidfident fits your work
Pads, cabinets and terminations by the each
Each line takes a count, hours per unit, a material price and equipment by the hour, with labour, material and equipment totalled as you go.
A boom truck for the hours it lifts
Give the boom truck its own hours per pad and per cabinet. It's charged for those hours, not the crew's.
Power to the cabinets as a subtrade
Enter each electrical bid, see the lowest flagged, and carry it or the one you pick. Carry a plug amount until the quotes come in.
Technicians and labourers at their own rates
Pads and conduit stubs on the labourer, cabinets, grounding and terminations on the fibre technician. Each line takes its trade's rate.
Each site with its own subtotal
Tag lines by cabinet site and group the sheet to see what each location comes to.
Cabinet assemblies that fill a line
Save a cabinet set and secured as an assembly with its hours and price, and pick it to fill a whole line at once.
Worked example: installing six fibre distribution cabinets
A made-up job, priced in Bidfident: 26 lines of your own work, 3 subtrades and 5 overhead items over a 4-week job. The 5 lines this page talks about are listed one by one, and the rest are added up in one row. It's the same job you can open as an example project in Bidfident, so every figure below matches it.
To open this job in Bidfident: sign in and set up your company in Canada, then on the Projects screen, under Example project, pick "Telecom and fibre" and "Cabinet installs" and press Add example project.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Precast cabinet pads, set level, 2 ea
| $4,046.00 |
Fibre distribution cabinets, set and secured, 2 ea
| $21,512.00 |
Grounding, rods and bonding, 2 ea
| $1,252.00 |
Conduit stubs into cabinets, 12 ea
| $1,855.20 |
Fibre terminations and labelling, 288 ea
| $3,081.60 |
21 more lines of your own work
| $97,111.28 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Electrical, power to cabinets
| $15,400.00 |
Landscape restoration at cabinet sites
| $4,800.00 |
Utility service connection charges, allowance
| $6,000.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Site supervision, foreman
| $6,800.00 |
Traffic control
| $5,600.00 |
Crew truck and tool trailer
| $1,800.00 |
Development and road use permits
| $1,800.00 |
Mobilize crew and equipment
| $1,500.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Own work
| $128,858.08 |
| Excluded lines, not counted | $6,728.00 |
| Subtrades | $26,200.00 |
Overhead
| $17,500.00 |
Direct cost
| $172,558.08 |
Contingency
| $5,176.74 |
Fee
| $17,773.48 |
| Subtotal before bonding | $195,508.30 |
Bonding
| $1,955.08 |
Insurance
| $977.54 |
Bid total
| $198,440.92 |
GST, for reference
| $9,922.05 |
See it in Bidfident
Coming soon Ask your estimate anything. Claude first, ChatGPT to follow. See how it will work
Questions
Can I price each cabinet as one line?
Yes, where one trade does the work. Save the cabinet, set and secured, as an assembly with its hours and price, and pick it to fill the line. An assembly fills one line with one trade, so the pad and the cabinet stay on their own lines.
Can the boom truck run fewer hours than the crew?
Yes. Give the line's equipment its own hours per unit. Leave it blank and it runs for the crew's hours.
Can I see the cost for each site?
Yes. Tag each line with a location or area and group the sheet by it, with a subtotal for each.
Can I keep an extra cabinet as an option?
Yes. Switch the line off. It stays on the sheet struck through, and what it comes to is shown beside the totals, not counted in the bid.
Can pads, cabinets and terminations go to different cost codes?
Yes. Every line takes its own cost code. Paste your list in from Excel or QuickBooks and check the preview of what will be added or updated before anything changes.
Can I send the owner a price for each cabinet site?
Not from Bidfident yet. Group the sheet by site to see what each one costs, then copy the cost report as CSV. Client view hides hours and rates on screen, but its unit prices are your cost, before markups.
Does Bidfident work with Claude or ChatGPT?
Not yet, but it's coming. You'll be able to connect Bidfident to your own Claude or ChatGPT account and ask about your estimates in plain English. The answers will come from Bidfident's own figures, so they match the estimate. It will use the account you already have: Claude first, ChatGPT to follow.
Price your next cabinet install bid in Bidfident
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