Frequently Asked Questions
Is it difficult to use Select Estimating? Is training available?
Select Estimating is simple to get started with, but we do have tutorial videos that that explain how to use every aspect of the Select Estimating system. And if you have any questions, we are here to answer them for you.
What types of estimates for different businesses can be written with Select Estimating?
Any building or repair contractor, along with new home builders. HVAC, electrical, and plumbing contractors, as well as insurance adjusters, will appreciate and love the Select Estimating system.
Do I have to be online to use the Select Estimating system?
Yes, you need an internet connection to use our Select Estimating system.
How often are prices updated?
Select Estimating is updated once every 3 months, however, if you need to change a price, our system is designed for you to easily be able to do that.
How do I purchase a subscription and start using Select Estimating?
Can I cancel or change my subscription?
Every subscription will be automatically set up for auto-renewal at the end of the subscription length chosen. To cancel the subscription at the end of the current period, simply navigate to the Organization screen and click the “Cancel Subscription” button. It is not possible to cancel partway through a subscription for a refund for the rest of the subscription period.
If you want to change your subscription, which includes wanting to change the terms of your auto-renewing subscription before the next subscription period begins or you want to purchase a full subscription to start when your free trial ends, you can do that using this button. Any new subscription you purchase will not start until your current subscription ends, and your credit card will not be charged until then. You do not have to cancel your auto-renewing subscription before changing to a different subscription—once you have entered your payment information for a new subscription and clicked the Save button, we’ll take care of canceling your current subscription at the end of the sub period and starting the new one at that time.
Note: If you wish to simply change the payment information—charge a different credit card, for example—for the next subscription period but not change the actual subscription package itself, and you want to avoid a gap in your service, you will need to contact us to do this. The system will not allow you to change subscriptions to the same subscription, only to a different one. Call us at (800) 289-1458, and we can help you with this.
Can I show my estimate to someone who is not a User in my organization?
Estimates can be shared with non-users, as many times as needed. The person with whom you are sharing the estimate needs to be able to log into their own user account to view the estimate you share with them, but they do not have to have an account already when you share the estimate with them. Open the “Estimate Shared With” area within the estimate in question and type in the email address of the person you want to allow access to your estimate. If you want to allow the person to edit all aspects of the estimate, click the “Can Edit” checkbox. Do not click the box if you want to allow this person to view the entire estimate but not edit anything.
An email invitation will be sent to the address you entered. If they do not yet have an account with Select Estimating, they will be prompted to create on then. After they accept the invitation and are logged into their user account, they will have access to the shared estimate at whatever level they were given. The ability to edit or not can be altered at any time, and the email address can be deleted from this section at any time, thus revoking that person’s entire access to the estimate.
What the Blueprint Count? Does the Blueprint Count roll over?
Blueprints can be drawn by the estimate writer within any rooms of the estimate. There is no limit to how many blueprints can be created with any estimate, but each blueprint will remove 1 from your total Blueprint Count. When a subscription is purchased for your organization, the number under Blueprint Count is how many potential blueprints you will be given for each subscription period. So each time the subscription renews, you will receive that number of blueprints, added to your Blueprint Count. Your current Blueprint Count can be seen in the Organization screen or in the top-right corner of the window in every screen within the web app.
Any Blueprint Count remaining at the end of a subscription period will roll over to the next subscription period, and your Blueprint Count will never expire.
Note: Blueprint Access is an optional feature, so blueprints can only be created if your organization has purchased a subscription with blueprint access.
What if I run out of blueprints before my subscription is over?
More blueprints can be purchased at any time from the Organization screen OR by clicking the “+ ADD” button in the top-right corner of any screen within the web app.
What parts of Select Estimating can I use without a subscription? Can I still access my estimates after my subscription has expired?
Without an active subscription, the only areas of Select Estimating that can be access in an organization are the Estimates screen and Organization screen. And you can still access your own user account screen.
Any estimates created in the organization before the subscription expired can still be viewed and the report can still be downloaded, but the estimate cannot be edited in any way. Estimates will never be deleted due to an expired subscription.
However, if you had any pictures saved with any estimates, pictures will only be stored for 3 months after an organization’s subscription has expired. This is also the case if an organization had access to the optional Pictures feature and then changed to a subscription without it—pictures will be deleted 3 months after the access to the Pictures feature has ended in any way, unless a new subscription with access to the Pictures feature begins within that time period. DELETED PICTURES CANNOT BE RECOVERED.
How do I start? How do I get to the Select Estimating app?
To start using Select Estimating, go to https://app.selectestimating.com/login/signup and create an account. For help with account creation, watch the video below:
How do I start writing an estimate?
You can start writing your first estimate with a few simple steps. When you are logged into an account and viewing an organization that has an active subscription, navigate to the Estimates screen and click on the Add Estimate button. You can fill in information in the screen that opens, but all of it is optional and can be added later. Clicking the Next button twice will get you to the final screen, where you can click Submit and a blank estimate will be created.
To be able to begin adding items to your estimate, you’ll need to create one Area of Building, one Room within that area and one Group within that room. These categories can help you organize the overall inspection if you want to differentiate between areas (like interior and exterior or different floors of a building), different rooms within an area, and different groupings of products within a room.
Once you have created an area, room, and group, click the “Add Line Item” button and a window will open to allow you to start writing your estimate.
What devices are compatible with Select Estimating?
Select Estimating is compatible with any computer or mobile device. No app download is required. Our web app is accessible within any browser.
How reliable are the prices in Select Estimating?
Select Estimating has partnered with Craftsman-Book publishing to bring our users unlimited access to our complete database of 30,000 different line items with definitive pricing. Craftsman-Book publishing has been in business since 1953, making it one of the oldest and most accurate pricing guidelines on the market today.
I got an email to be part of someone’s organization or to view/edit someone else’s estimate, but I don’t have a Select Estimating account.
If the invitation was sent to you in error or for any other reason you do not wish to create a Select Estimating account, you can simply choose not to follow the link in the email you were sent. You will be under no obligation to have any further association with Select Estimating.
For more information about creating your account or how to access an estimate that has been shared with you, watch the videos below:
What is the difference between an account and an organization? How do I switch between different organizations I have access to or make sure I’m purchasing a subscription for the right organization?
A user account is the account that one user logs into that will have access to at least one organization. Organizations can likewise have multiple users. For more detailed information about the difference between users and organizations, the possibility of a user having access to more than one organization, and how to select which organization you want to access at any given time, watch the video below:
What is a user? How do I add users to my organization?
Every organization has one user by default. When a new account is created, an organization is created for that account by default, and that organization’s only user is the user account that the organization was created for. Once a subscription is purchased for an organization, if the subscription allows more than one user, more users can then be added in the Users screen, which can be found in the pull-out menu.
Then you only need to type in the email address of the person you want to allow access to your organization. If the potential User already has an account with Select Estimating, make sure you are using the same email address that they used for their account. If they do not have an account yet, you can still invite them to be a user. They will be instructed to create their account when they accept your invitation to be a User.
There are two levels of Users: admin and non-admin. Admin users have access to every part of your organization, including the ability to add or remove other Users, and access the organization screen, which also gives them the ability to cancel an existing subscription or purchase a new one and purchase blueprints for the organization. The only thing an admin User cannot do is affect the email address and password of other Users.
Non-admin Users only have access to the Estimate and Template areas. The non-admin User can create, edit, or delete templates and estimates, but will not have access to any other part of the organization.
Only one instance of a single User account can be logged into at one time, which means that logging into an account that is logged in elsewhere will cause that other instance to be logged out. That is why each different User needs to have their own User account.
How do I change the price of an item in my organization? How do I add my own items?
Though our Select Estimating webapp provides a list of over 30,000 items with a standard industry price that is updated every 3 months, we understand that individual organizations may have access to different pricing than that standard or may have need for custom products not provided by our database. Both of these can be done in the Products screen.
To change the price of a product that exists in the database, click the “ADD PRODUCT” button in the top half of the screen. Find the product that you want to override prices for and click the plus button next to it, and it will be added to the list behind this window. Then it’s simply a matter of typing in the price that you want to use instead of the original price.
To create your own custom product within your organization, click the “CREATE NEW PRODUCT” button in the bottom half of the screen. Enter a name, the units the product is priced in, and the price of one of those units, and click Create. This product will now appear in the list of all products everywhere that products are involved.
Note: Any price edited in the Override Prices section OR information edited for a custom product will not affect that item that has already been added to an estimate. Info edited here will be the info used when the item is added to any estimates from this point forward. However, any item that has been added to a template will be updated if the price is changed in the Override Prices section or any custom item information is changed, because templates always reflect the current, updated information of any items for your organization.
What kinds of things can I customize for my estimates?
There are several areas in the app that are intended to allow you to set up custom information or prepare pre-made templates to allow smoother and faster estimate writing in the future:
Custom Products or Custom Pricing: In the Products screen, you can change the price of any items in our database of over 30,000 items, and that price will appear in all estimates that the item is added to in the future. Or you can create your own custom products to appear in the list of items that can be added to estimates. Custom products can also be added to templates and product groups.
Product Groups: When you create a Product Group, you can add any items to it that you wish, so that when you add line items to an estimate (or template), you can view your created Product Groups and more quickly find items that you use more often.
Templates: Creating templates allows you to start an estimate with some structure already in place, from Estimate Setup information all the way through having some line items already entered with quantities saved. Templates also allow you the option of copying an entire Group of line items within a room in a template into an estimate, making templates a great way to save time on estimate writing.
Note: Template access is an optional feature, so in order to create and use a template, your organization needs to have purchased a subscription with template access.
Clients: Setting up Clients and Property Addresses within those clients allows you to more quickly enter this information when starting a new estimate. If you have Clients set up in advance when you click the “Add Estimate” button to create a new estimate, the window the pops up has first a drop-down box to select an existing client, thereby filling in the name, email address, and/or phone number you have saved with that Client. Then on the next screen, if a saved Client was chosen, you can choose a Property Address that was saved with that Client and automatically populate the address information. For Clients that might be used more than once, this can save time on future estimates.
Organization Information: In the Organization screen, there are several sections of information that can be saved and will affect future estimate creation:
Organization info – The organization’s logo, name, mailing address, phone number, and email address is entered or edited here. When a new estimate is created*, information here will automatically populate the same fields in the new estimate. The logo will not appear in the estimate writing screen, but it will appear in the downloaded report.
Estimate setup – Default percentages for Overhead & Profit, Depreciation, Tax, and Product Markup can be set in this screen, and then when a new estimate is created*, these percentages will be automatically populated in the new estimate. Also, toggles for Tax, Overhead & Profit, and ACV (Actual Cash Value) can be turned on or off here and will then be on or off when a new estimate is created in the future*. The toggles affect whether or not this information appears at all in the estimate.
*If a new estimate is created using a template, the organization info, percent values, and toggles mentioned above will be populated based on how these values are saved in the chosen template, rather than the organization screen.
Is my personal information that is shared with Select Estimating kept private?
No one will have access to any information that you enter into your Select Estimating account other than Select Estimating and anyone with whom you may share your account log in information. For our full privacy policy, please visit this link: https://selectestimating.com/privacy-policy/
Your credit card information is 100% confidential. Your information will be stored with our payment site, Stripe, but Select Estimating and its employees will not have access to it.