Calculators

A calculator is the spreadsheet you quote a basement, a deck or a roof from, made to do its own arithmetic. You type the numbers the job turns on — the area, the wall length, the ceiling height — and every line the job takes is worked out and priced onto the proposal, each quantity with a sentence saying how it was worked out.

Add Calculators to your business

Calculators is a tool you add from the Tools page; it is on every plan. Once added, Calculators appears in the Sales group of the menu. The owner, managers and estimators build and change calculators; a bookkeeper can read and try them. Field workers do not see them.

Start from a ready-made calculator

The Ready-made tab on the Calculators page lists calculators for common jobs, your trade’s first:

• Remodeling — Basement finish, Drywall hang and finish, Bathroom tile, floor and shower walls and Interior trim and doors.
• Electrical — Recessed lighting and Basement circuits.
• Painting — Interior rooms, Exterior siding and Deck or fence stain.
• Roofing — Asphalt shingle replacement and Metal roofing. The roof’s area, in squares, reads the roof measured on the client’s site — from Google’s roof data on Professional, or traced on the site map — so Estimate with a calculator fills it in.
• Landscaping — Sod, Mulch beds and edging and Seeding and aeration.
• Cleaning — Residential clean by home size and Commercial clean by area and visits: the hours from the area at a production rate you can change, with the bathrooms, the restrooms, how often and the add-ons.
• Pest control — Perimeter treatment: a year of visits, and the finished spray to mix for the band around the home at the rate you choose. Mix and apply at the product label’s rate.
• Handyman — Drywall repair, by the patch, and Interior door replacement.
• Plumbing — Water heater replacement, gas, electric or tankless.
• HVAC — Ductless mini-split install: the materials and labor for a system you have sized. Nothing in it works out a capacity or a load.
• Decks and fences — Deck build, Wood privacy fence, Vinyl fence and Chain-link fence. The joist and post spacing are choices you make; nothing works out a span.
• Flooring — Vinyl plank or laminate, Tile floor, Carpet and Hardwood.
• Concrete and hardscape — Concrete slab or patio, Paver patio or walkway and Block retaining wall, for a wall up to about 4 ft.
• Gutters, siding and insulation — Gutters and downspouts, Vinyl siding, Attic blown-in insulation — to the R-value you choose over what is there — and Wall batt insulation.

Each carries the quantities and the rules, never a price. Preview works one out on its defaults — Basement finish on a 1,000 sq ft basement with 8 ft ceilings, 130 ft of foundation wall and 60 ft of partitions — and shows every line’s quantity, what it is worked out on and what it leaves out.

Add to my calculators makes it yours, to change like one you built. Each line uses the item in your Price Book with its name and unit, and an item you do not have is added to your Price Book with no price. One you have in another unit is left as it is — connectors by the box are not the packs the calculator counts — and the new one is named with its unit, Wire connectors (pack). Without the Price Book, each line keeps an item of the calculator’s own with no price, which you set on the line. The calculator is offered for your kinds of work with the same names, such as Basement finishing.

Adding one again makes a second copy, named with (2). When a ready-made calculator is improved, its card says Updated; your copy is never changed under you, so add it again to have the new one beside it.

A trade kit that carries calculators adds them when you take it — see Trade kits.

Set your prices

Straight after you add a ready-made calculator, Set your prices lists the items it added to your Price Book, each with its cost to buy and your price, to fill in together. A service’s cost is its hours at your labor rate, which you set on the item in the Price Book. Skip for now leaves them for later: a run with lines that have no price says how many — 12 lines have no price yet — with Set your prices beside it, and the run’s price leaves those lines out until they have one.

Start from your own spreadsheet

From a spreadsheet, on the Calculators page, brings in the parts list you quote from: a CSV or an Excel .xlsx, up to 5 MB and 1,000 rows. In a workbook with several sheets, pick the one with the parts. The columns of its header row are matched to Item, Notes, Quantity, Unit and Cost — suggested from the columns’ names, and yours to change.

A row with an item and nothing else is a heading, and starts a section. A row that says total or subtotal, or adds up the rows above it, is left out, so a cost summary under the list does not come in as parts. A row that cannot be read — a quantity that is not a number — is listed by its row number and left out, and the rest come in. Formulas are read as the values they last showed. The preview shows every line in its section, and which are already in your Price Book by name.

Create calculator makes a draft: the list’s sections, each line at its quantity as a fixed number. A line your Price Book has by name uses that item; the rest are items of the calculator’s own, with the list’s unit and cost and no price yet. The file is read and not kept. From there, add the inputs the job turns on and give each line a rule in place of its fixed number — see Say how many of each line — or, on Professional, have the assistant work them out from your list’s assumptions.

Have the assistant work out the rules from your list

On Professional, a calculator started from a spreadsheet says which file it came from and offers Work out the rules while any of its lines is still a fixed number. Paste in the assumptions the list was worked out from — the tab or the notes that say 1,000 sq ft finished, 8 ft ceilings, 130 ft of foundation wall, 2 doors — up to 6,000 characters.

The assistant proposes the inputs those numbers become and a rule for each line it can explain: one stud every 16 in along the new partitions, plus 1. A rule is offered only when it gives the list’s own quantity, within one, at those numbers; each shows what it gives beside what the list had, and how. The lines no rule explained are listed under Left fixed and stay as the list had them. Choose Accept on each rule you want, or Accept all; accepting adds the inputs the rules read. Nothing is saved until you choose Save changes, and the rules are worked out from the calculator as saved, so save any change of yours first.

Have the assistant draft a calculator

On Professional, Describe it on the Calculators page — and Describe it to the assistant when you have none — drafts a whole calculator from a description in your own words, up to 2,000 characters: basement finish: rigid foam on the foundation walls, 2x4 walls at 24 in, drywall, LVP, three finish levels. It drafts the inputs, the choices, the worked values, the sections and every line with a rule for its quantity, using the ready-made calculators for your trade and your own as its examples. A line uses your Price Book item of that name where you have one; otherwise it is an item of the calculator’s own at no price.

The draft is checked before you see it. One that will not work out is asked for again once; whatever still will not is left out and named. It opens in the editor not saved, with what was left out said at the top, and Try it working it out on its defaults. Change what you like and choose Save calculator — or leave, and nothing is kept.

The assistant is never shown a price or a cost, and never sets one: the prices are your Price Book’s or yours to fill in, as Set your prices says.

The AI allowance

Drafting and working out rules spend your plan’s monthly AI allowance. Each shows what is left before you ask, because asking spends it whether or not you keep the answer. With the month’s allowance used, it says so and asks nothing until the allowance renews. On Starter, neither is offered; building, the ready-made calculators and starting from a spreadsheet work the same on every plan.

Build a calculator

Open Calculators and choose + New calculator. Give it a name, and if it suits only some kinds of work, the job types it is offered for. Then fill in its parts, top to bottom:

• Inputs — the numbers the job turns on. Each has a label, a kind (a length, an area, a count, a plain number or a percent), a unit and a default. Wall length, a length in feet, 130.
• Choices — decisions that change what is used, each with two to twelve options and a default. Climate zone: zone 4–5 or zone 6 and colder. An option can carry values the rules read, such as an R-value per inch.
• Worked values — figures several lines share, worked out from the inputs. Wall area: the wall length times the ceiling height.
• Sections and lines — what the job takes, grouped the way you quote it: framing, drywall, flooring.
• Not included — what the price leaves out, one per line: egress windows, permits, plumbing.

Every input, choice and worked value has a name in rules, which is how a rule reads it — wallLength. A new one’s name follows its label as you type; change it yourself and every rule that reads it changes with it.

Choose Save calculator when you are done. A calculator can be saved half-finished and finished later.

Say how many of each line

Each line is an item — one from your Price Book, or, without the Price Book, an item of the calculator’s own with its unit, cost and price — and a rule for how many. Choose + Add a line in a section and pick the rule that reads like the way you would say it:

Rule	Example
The same as a figure	Square feet of flooring is the floor area.
One per so many	A box of screws per 400 square feet.
Spaced along a length	A stud every 24 inches along the walls, plus one per wall.
Coverage over coats	Two coats over the wall area at 350 square feet a gallon.
Pieces cut from stock	The wall area in 4×8 sheets of 32 square feet.
A volume in cubic yards	A slab’s area at 4 inches deep.
A fixed number	One foam kit, whatever the size.
A formula	For the rare line no pattern fits.
An allowance	A percent of the run’s materials cost, for contingency, waste and re-buys.

Each figure in a rule is an input or worked value picked by its label, a number, or a short formula. A formula uses the calculator’s names, numbers, + − × ÷ and brackets, and seven functions: ceil, floor, round, min, max, abs and if. It is at most 500 characters.

Add waste, and round up to what you can buy

A line’s Waste is added to what its rule works out, then the total is rounded up — to whole ones, for sheets and studs, or to packs of so many, for four-packs of lights or boxes of a hundred. A quantity is never rounded down. 130 ft of wall at a stud every 24 in, plus one: 66; plus 10% waste: 72.6; rounded up to whole ones: 73.

Use a line only when it applies

A line can apply always, only when a choice is at one option, only when a figure is more than nothing, or when a formula says so. Railing sections, only when Railing is Yes. A line that does not apply, or works out to nothing, is left out, and Try it says why.

A line can also change item with a choice: pressure-treated boards for wood decking and composite boards for composite, on one line.

Try it as you build

Try it, beside the editor, works the calculator out as you change it — on its defaults, or on numbers you type there. Every section shows each line’s quantity and how we got this, and nothing is saved and no prices are shown.

If something cannot be worked out — a rule naming something the calculator does not have, two worked values that need each other, a division by nothing — Try it says so, the problem is shown on the input, value or line it is in, and the calculator says how many problems keep it from being run. It can be saved with them and fixed later, but it cannot be run onto a proposal until they are fixed.

Let an input read from the site

With Site Intelligence on, an input can read a number from a client’s site, so it is filled from what was measured there instead of typed. In the editor, set its Reads from a site: an area, a roof’s sloped area, a wall face or the total area of counted things for an area input; a length or an area’s perimeter for a length; a count for a count. From the group names the group of measurements it fills from first — Roof for every face of a roof.

Run a calculator onto a proposal

On a draft proposal, above its lines, choose Add from a calculator. Your calculators are listed with those made for the proposal’s job type first; one with a problem in it is listed, says so, and cannot be chosen.

The run sheet opens filled in with the calculator’s defaults. Type the job’s numbers — a length in feet and inches, the way you read a tape — and pick its choices. As you do, every section’s lines show their quantity, the price each, the line’s price, its cost and its margin, and the run’s total against your target margin, with Under target where it falls short. Beside each quantity is how we got this. A line whose choice does not apply, or that works out to nothing, is left out and says why.

Any quantity can be changed on the sheet before you add it; it is marked Changed by hand. Choose Add to proposal, and the lines go onto the proposal grouped under the calculator’s sections — a Price Book item priced and costed from the Price Book as any Price Book line is, an item of the calculator’s own at the price and cost the calculator gives it. An allowance line is its percent of the run’s materials cost, priced to your target margin.

A proposal can carry more than one run — a basement and its bathroom — each under its own sections.

Ask the assistant for an estimate

On Professional, open the assistant — Ask the assistant at the bottom right of any console page — and say the job: estimate a 16 by 20 composite deck for the Lindqvists. It finds the client and the calculator by name, and reads the sizes and choices you said against the calculator’s own: 16 by 20 fills its first two lengths, composite picks that option, 40 feet of railing fills the railing. What you did not say is filled from the client’s site, as Fill it in from the site describes, and otherwise takes the calculator’s default.

Before anything is written, a card shows the run: each input with where its figure came from — as you said, from the site, or the calculator’s default — the choices, how many lines it makes and what they come to at your prices. Do it makes a new draft proposal for the client with the run on it, exactly as Add from a calculator would; open it to check and send it. Where two calculators match what you said, or none does, the assistant asks which rather than guessing.

Price good, better and best from one run

With Proposal options on, or on a proposal that has options already, the run sheet offers Price options. Each option is named — Good, Better and Best to start, or the proposal’s own options — and picks its own choices: the decking, the railing. The numbers are typed once; the run works every option out from them and shows each option’s price, cost and margin side by side, with what goes in every option and what is only in each one.

Add to proposal puts what every option makes alike — the same item at the same quantity — into the proposal’s base, and each option’s own lines into that option, turning the proposal’s options on if they were off. Open the run and Run again work every option out together. Quantities in options mode are changed on the proposal after adding.

Tell the client what the estimate is based on

Adding a run writes a section onto the proposal, What this estimate is based on, listing the run’s inputs and choices in the calculator’s words — Finished area: 1,000 sq ft. Ceiling height: 8 ft. Foam: 2 in. — and adds the calculator’s Not included lines to the proposal’s Exclusions, without repeating one the Exclusions already say. With options, a choice that differs names each option’s. The run sheet shows what the client will read before you add it. The client sees both on their proposal page and in its PDF.

Running again rewrites the section. If you edited it by hand, your words are kept and the run says so, so you can check it against the new numbers. Removing the run removes the section it wrote, unless you edited it.

In the calculator, an input or a choice marked For the office only is left out of the section, and the two switches under About it turn off the section or the Exclusions for that calculator. Both are on until you turn them off.

Fill it in from the site

When the proposal’s client has measurements, each input that reads from a site lists the ones that can give it on the run sheet — those at the proposal’s address first, then the group the input prefers. Every measurement in that group is ticked to start, summed — every face of the roof — or, with no group, the one measurement that alone can give it. Tick or untick to change what fills it; the input says which measurements filled it, and if you type over it, it says it was typed. With Site Intelligence off, inputs are typed.

To start from the site, open the client’s Work tab and, in Site measurements, choose Estimate with a calculator: a draft proposal for the client opens with the run sheet open and filled from the site. From a lead, the lead is converted to a client first, as Write a proposal does.

On Professional, a roof input at a site where no roof is measured offers Measure the roof from Google: Google’s roof data for the building at the site’s address, every face saved to the site in the Roof group and the input filled from them. On Starter, type the roof’s area.

If a measurement that filled a run changes or is removed, the draft proposal says which input moved and offers Run again with the new figures. A sent proposal is only told; a revision runs again with them.

Change a quantity, and run again

A run’s line changed on the proposal stays tied to the run and is marked Changed by hand. To change the job’s numbers, choose Open the run: the sheet opens as it was run. Change what you need and choose Run again. The run’s lines are replaced by what it works out now, except any you changed by hand, which keep your figure unless you tick Replace my figure with the run’s; the sheet says how many lines changed.

If the calculator has been changed since the run, the sheet says what changed and offers to run it on the newer version; until you do, the run keeps the version it was worked out with.

Remove the run takes it off the proposal with its lines. Removing one of its lines leaves the run and the rest; removing the last of them removes the run.

Once the proposal is sent, its runs still open, to read; a revision of it carries them, to run again. A bookkeeper opens runs and reads them, and cannot add, change or run one.

Take the calculation through the job

When the proposal is accepted, its calculator runs go with the job — for the option the client chose, where a run priced good, better and best — and each of the job’s lines keeps the run that made it. On the job’s Work tab, the Parts and materials panel opens with Worked out by a calculator: each run with the numbers and choices it was given, and every line it takes with its quantity and how it was worked out. It is read-only, for whoever sees proposals and the Price Book; a job with no run does not show it.

• The plan. On the Plan tab, Make it from the proposal puts each calculator section’s lines in a stage named for the section — Framing, Drywall, Flooring — in the calculator’s order, using a stage of that name where the job has one. Lines from no calculator go where they always have. See Make a plan for a job.
• The materials. With Inventory on, the run’s stocked Price Book items fill the job’s materials list at the quantity on the proposal, waste and rounding included, as any accepted line does, and an order drafted from it rounds up to the supplier’s pack — see Let Inventory draft the order. An item of the calculator’s own is not stocked, so it is not on the list.

Run it again when the job turns out different

The ceiling is nine feet, not eight. On the job’s Work tab, each run under Worked out by a calculator offers Run again for a change to whoever changes proposals, on a job that is not completed, closed or archived. It opens on the run’s figures as they stand; change what turned out different and choose Work it out. The run is worked out again on the calculator as it was quoted and the option the client chose, at today’s prices, and compared line by line with what the job holds — its lines from the run and any change order made from it before:

• Went up — each item with what the job holds and what it takes now, and what the difference comes to at today’s prices.
• Went down — each item with what it was quoted at and what the difference comes to at that price. Nothing is credited on its own; credit any of it by hand if you choose.

Make a change order drafts one of what went up — named for the calculator, with the figures that changed in its description, Wall length: 100 ft → 120 ft — and opens it in the change order’s editor, its margin against your target in front of you, to check and send as any change order. An item of the calculator’s own is on it at its own price; it can be changed there, and a new one of those is added only by running the calculator again.

When the client accepts it, it joins the job as any change order does: its lines count in the job’s costing, its stocked items join the materials list, and its lines can be put on the plan with Add to the plan. The run then stands at its new figures and says it was run again; a change order voided afterwards puts the run back where it was.

Learn the real waste

A calculator adds the waste you tell it — ten percent on drywall, say. What your jobs really take is in what they record, so the product sets one against the other. It needs Inventory or Purchasing: what counts is what was recorded against the Price Book item on the job — parts used, net of what went back to stock; otherwise what the job’s purchase orders received; otherwise what supplier bills charged against those orders. They are the same parts seen at three moments, so they are never added together. An expense or a card purchase names no item and does not count.

• On a job, under Worked out by a calculator, Calculated against used sets each item of the run beside what the job recorded: the quantity calculated before waste, what went onto the job, what was used and where that was recorded, and the waste the job really took. An item of the calculator’s own, or a labor line, says nothing was recorded for it.
• On the calculator, once completed jobs that ran it have recorded what they used, each line says its real waste across them and how many jobs that is — or that nothing was recorded for it. With three or more such jobs taking three points or more away from the line’s waste, the line offers the figure: Use 11% changes the line in the editor, and Save changes keeps it. Nothing changes on its own.

Copy, archive and restore a calculator

From More on a calculator: Copy it makes a calculator of your own to change, named (copy); Archive stops it being offered on proposals, though it still opens on the ones that ran it, and Restore offers it again. The Archived tab lists the ones you archived. Nothing is ever deleted.

Once a calculator has been run, saving it makes a new version; every run keeps the version it was worked out with.

Try one free

Every ready-made calculator is also free to use at smgtools.com/calculators, by trade, with no sign-in. It works the materials list out in your browser from the numbers you type, with how each quantity was got, exactly as the same calculator does in SMG Tools — but with no prices, and nothing you type is sent or kept. A line above the boxes says what each change did — 13 lines changed. Concrete, 80 lb bag: 9 bag → 15 bag — and See the list takes you down to it, the changed lines marked. Share it with a customer who wants a rough idea before they call.

What a calculator is, and is not

A calculator estimates the quantities a job takes, from the rules you give it. It is an estimate, and every quantity can be changed. It does not size a beam, a footing, an electrical service or a furnace, and nothing in it says that anything meets code — check your local code where it matters.