Estimating software for trades that price by measured quantity.

A drylining estimate lives or dies on the build-up. A 70mm stud partition boarded one side in 12.5mm wallboard and one side in 15mm fire-rated board is a different rate per square metre from the one two lines above it, and the difference is easy to lose when you are pricing twelve rooms against a programme.

FitForge prices the build-up, not the wall. You define the layers once: stud centres, board type each side, insulation, tape and joint. Every wall that uses it then picks up the current rate for every component, including the board waste percentage that belongs to that board rather than a single figure applied across the job.

What it handles

• Metal stud and track by length, priced from the stock length you actually buy
• Jumbo stud and track, kept separate because the rates and the heights differ
• Board by sheet with per-board-type waste, so 15mm fire-rated is not wasted at the same rate as wallboard
• Acoustic and thermal insulation converted between roll, square metre and stock unit
• Tape, joint and skim as a finishing rate per square metre
• Fixings, angle bead and sundries as a percentage or a measured item

Jumbo framing rates are held separately and start at zero until you enter your own. Structural suitability and maximum partition height are a design matter, not something an estimating tool should assume.

A refurbishment job is rarely one trade. It is a strip-out, then partitions, then ceilings, then second fix, then making good, each measured differently and often with different people pricing different sections, and all of it needing to add up to one tender with one margin on it.

FitForge keeps the sections separate while they are being priced and brings them together for the tender. You can see the direct cost of each section and what the overheads and profit do to it, rather than discovering at the end that the whole job carries one blended percentage that suits none of it.

What it handles

• Sections priced independently, rolled into one tender total
• Preliminaries and site overheads as their own line, not buried in a rate
• Subcontract packages priced alongside your own labour
• Provisional sums and exclusions carried onto the quotation
• Variations tracked against the original tender once the job is running
• Payment stages that add up to the contract value, with the rounding residual on the final stage

Ceilings price cleanly by area right up until the point they do not. Perimeter trim runs by the metre, bulkheads are their own item, and the access equipment is often a bigger line than anyone expects on a high-ceilinged unit.

FitForge lets grid and tile sit as an area rate while trim, bulkheads and access are measured separately, so the access hire is visible as a cost rather than absorbed into a square-metre rate that then gets applied to a job with no access requirement at all.

What it handles

• Grid and tile by square metre with separate waste percentages
• Perimeter trim and shadow gap by linear metre
• Bulkheads and margins as measured items
• Tower scaffold, podiums and lifts as plant, by day or week
• Tile type substitutions without re-measuring the area

Plastering rates come down to coverage and labour output, and both are specific to the firm. Published price books give an average of everybody; your own figures give you the rate that reflects how your gangs actually work and what your merchant actually charges.

FitForge holds coverage as a property of the material, in bags per square metre at a given thickness, so changing the thickness changes the material quantity without you recalculating anything, and changing the merchant price updates every estimate that has not been issued.

What it handles

• Material coverage by thickness, converted to bags or tonnes
• Labour output rates per square metre, per gang
• Separate rates for float and set, skim on board, and render
• Beads and stops by linear metre
• Preparation and making good as measured items

Insulation is the classic unit-conversion problem. It is specified per square metre, quoted by the roll or the pack, delivered by the pallet, and installed by the wall. Get the conversion wrong and you are either short on site or carrying stock you paid for.

FitForge holds the purchase unit and the measured unit separately and converts between them, so a supplier quoting per square metre and a merchant quoting per roll can both sit in the same rate library against the same material.

What it handles

• Purchase unit and measured unit held separately, with the conversion recorded
• Acoustic and thermal grades as distinct materials with their own prices
• Density and thickness variants without duplicating the whole record
• Waste applied to the purchase unit, which is where waste actually happens

In finishing trades the headline rate is rarely the problem. It is the preparation: the latex, the primer, the making good, the extra coat on a dark colour. And the waste, which on a cut-heavy floor can be a long way from the 5% somebody typed in once.

FitForge treats preparation as measured items in their own right rather than an allowance buried in the rate, so you can see what proportion of the price is preparation and argue for it when the client asks why the number is what it is.

What it handles

• Coverage rates per litre, per pack or per box
• Preparation as separate measured items
• Per-material waste, set higher for cut-heavy work
• Number of coats as a multiplier on labour and material
• Adhesive, grout and trim as sundries or measured items