Bidfident for fibre contractors
Estimating software for fibre cabling
Pricing fibre cabling in Bidfident starts with the metres. Put cable pulled through duct and overhead fibre on catenary wire on their own lines, each with its hours per metre and a waste percentage on the cable. The cherry picker is charged for its own hours, footway chambers and slack coils go in by number, the utility survey as a subcontract package, and traffic management by the week.
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Sound familiar?
Overhead and underground at one rate
An overhead linesman on the poles costs more than a technician pulling cable through duct, but one blended rate in the spreadsheet hides it. In Bidfident each line takes its own trade's rate from your library.
Cable waste guessed on a separate row
Slack, tails and offcuts get added as a lump at the bottom, or forgotten. In Bidfident each line's material price has its own waste percentage, so the extra cable is priced in the line it belongs to.
Traffic management that doesn't follow the programme
The route slips a week and the traffic management row still says five. In Bidfident weekly items like traffic management and supervision follow the job duration, so change the weeks and they follow.
How Bidfident fits your work
Linesmen and technicians at their own rates
Put the overhead cabling on the linesman, cable pulls on the fibre technician and chambers on the labourer. Each line takes its trade's rate from your library.
Metres of cable with waste built in
Each line takes metres, hours per metre, a cable price with its waste percentage, and plant by the hour. Copy a run down the sheet like Excel and the totals keep up.
A cherry picker for the hours it works
Give the cherry picker its own hours per metre on the overhead line. It's charged for those hours, not every hour the crew spends on the poles.
Traffic management by the week
Traffic management and the site supervisor go in by the week and follow the job duration. Stretch the programme from 5 weeks to 6 and they follow.
Each section with its own subtotal
Tag lines with a section, a street or a pole route, then group the sheet by it to see what each stretch of the route comes to.
Utility survey quotes side by side
Enter each survey quote on the Subcontractors tab, see the lowest flagged, and carry it or the one you pick. No quotes yet? Carry an allowance so the tender isn't short.
Worked example: fibre to a rural business park
A made-up job, priced in Bidfident: 25 lines of your own work, 3 subcontract packages and 5 preliminaries items over a 5-week programme. 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 the UK, then on the Projects screen, under Example project, pick "Telecoms and fibre" and "Fibre cabling" and press Add example project.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Fibre cable, 144-fibre, pulled through duct, 6,200 m
| £15,388.40 |
Footway chambers, set and backfilled, 12 nr
| £5,352.00 |
Slack coils and storage brackets, 18 nr
| £814.50 |
Overhead fibre, on catenary wire, 2,400 m
| £7,185.60 |
Catenary wire and pole fittings, 2,400 m
| £4,080.00 |
20 more lines of your own work
| £21,540.51 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Utility survey and cable tracing
| £1,850.00 |
Directional drilling under the brook
| £4,895.00 |
Pole owner make-ready works, allowance
| £4,400.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Site supervisor
| £4,500.00 |
Traffic management
| £4,750.00 |
Contracts manager, part time
| £1,650.00 |
Street works notices and pole attachment fees
| £1,210.00 |
Mobilise gangs and plant
| £1,380.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Own work
| £54,361.01 |
| Excluded lines, not counted | £5,752.14 |
| Subcontractors | £11,145.00 |
Preliminaries
| £13,490.00 |
Direct cost
| £78,996.01 |
Contingency
| £2,369.88 |
Overheads and profit
| £8,136.59 |
| Subtotal before the bond | £89,502.48 |
Bond
| £895.02 |
Insurance
| £447.51 |
Tender total
| £90,845.01 |
VAT, for reference
| £18,169.00 |
See it in Bidfident
Coming soon Ask your estimate anything. Claude first, ChatGPT to follow. See how it will work
Questions
Can I price overhead and underground fibre differently?
Yes. Put each on its own line with its own trade, hours per metre and material price. The overhead line can carry the cherry picker by the hour.
Can I add waste for slack and offcuts?
Yes. Each line's material price has a waste percentage, so the extra cable is priced into the line.
Can I mix metres and drums?
Yes. Units are free text, so m, nr or drum all work. Bidfident doesn't convert between units, so keep each line in the unit its price is in.
Does traffic management follow the length of the job?
Yes. Weekly and monthly items follow the job duration in weeks, and part weeks such as 1.5 are allowed.
Can it measure the route from a map?
No. Type your metres in, or copy and paste them from your own spreadsheet.
Can I keep an underground option alongside the overhead route?
Yes. Enter the underground lines and switch them off. They stay on the sheet struck through, and their cost is shown beside the totals, not counted in the tender.
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 fibre tender in Bidfident
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