CSG News and Updates

New "Margin" pricing method in TakeOff Plus

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:25:00 +0000

We are working on a new Proposal Pricing method in TakeOff Plus this week and next. Our current methodology has primarily been 'Costs * Markup percentage'. As an FYI, Markup dollars are a percentage of costs, Margin dollars are a percentage of sales. The same 30% used as a markup or margin percentage will give you very different results respectively when figuring a sales price.

Pricing things by 'Margin' calculations has been more typically seen in a retail environment, but we have seen it become much more prevalent in our customer base and we have had many more requests for this type of pricing. We will be giving the ability to set default margin percentages by 'Bid Item Types', for example: materials, subcontractors, labor (in-house), etc. So, theoretically speaking you might set materials at 40% where subcontractors may only be 20% in your businesses pricing matrix.

We are also incorporating a fixed 'Retail' pricing scenario with this by item. We already have an area in the default cost area of the Items & Prices menu that allows to set a default Markup % which in turns set a retail price. You can also simply enter a retail price for this item and that will be used in your bid. The bids will have the ability to use either method, plus we will show an overall gross profit margin% onscreen for easy verification to help you insure the best possible profit realization based on your company goals.

Thank you for reading.

Steve Mallory
CSG Product Management Director

By the Number$: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe; Purchase Orders save Lots ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:28:00 +0000

By the Number$: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe; Purchase Orders save Lots ...: "It is an undeniable fact! Just pick 3 of your best suppliers and implement a Purchase Order system with them and see what happens. Two weeks..."

By the Number$

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:36:00 +0000

Dollars & Cents; Relevant to construction business management; A flow of information and ideas.

By the Number$

Check out a new blog dedicated to news about the construction and housing industry, educational information for businesses and ideas on what to focus on when analyzing your business number$. Post your comments, ideas, thoughts about better financial management of your business. Also hear about construction business success stories from time-to-time.

Hope you enjoy!

Fall 2010 Plus Series Release

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:29:00 +0000

Greetings CSG Customers. I am happy to announce our latest release in Beta form is available on our website. You can go to www.csgsoftware.com and click on the "CSG Enhancement Updates" link at the top of the page to login with your customer code.

What is a "Beta" release you ask? A Beta version is somewhat of a test version before we finalize everything that goes into a release. It gives our customer base an opportunity to check out any of the new features, test heavily used areas for any problems and then give us feedback on what you find. This release has been tested by our support staff, however, a Beta version gives us much more exposure of users utilizing all areas of the products, which in turn helps us find issues that may not be seen easily by our support staff. This helps us finalize a release and "lock it down" so-to-speak so we can then focus fully on enhancing the product with the next batch of upgrades in the next release.

We appreciate any help our customers are willing to give us during this time. This release will be in a Beta version for approximately 2-4 weeks, so please get us your feedback as soon as possible on any issues you come across.

Please contact us at 651-777-7716 ext 2, 2 if you have any questions about setting up a test copy of your data and using the Beta version on that first.

Thank you!

Budget vs. Committed Cost. What's the difference?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Many may ask "What's the difference between my budget and committed cost?". It's a great question and the answer lies in the original estimate and purchase orders. In TakeOff Plus when we finalize a Bid we then have an accurately estimated cost budget for a particular subdivision. However, factors can affect what the actual purchase cost will be later in the project that could cause some variance from the original budget. So, first the budget is set once the estimator finishes the initial Bid and then transfers that to Job Accounting. In essence, the Bid determines the Budget.

The Purchase Orders (or Subcontracts) are what determine the Committed Cost. The committed cost can be, and many times is, equal to the budget, but not always. Let's take the Electrical part of the house for example. On one of your jobs, your normal electrician is unable to perform the work at the needed schedule time so you have to find another sub to do the work. This change will happen on the PO or Subcontract, which in turn will update your committed cost, not the original budget.

Purchase Orders and Committed Cost are a deeper level of controlling costs than just using a budget. They also insure that invoices get entered properly to the right budget categories by populating from what the estimator setup and not leaving it open for questions by the office person doing the accounting. It takes the "guesswork" and loss of productivity out of the processing of AP Invoices due to the fact that less communication is needed between the actual estimator and bookkeeper.

Please let me know any questions or comments you have on this topic. Have a great day!

Steve Mallory

Access 2007 Release (Oh, the anticipation!)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:39:00 +0000

We are almost there and I believe you will love the new look and feel of the Access 2007 release for the Plus Series products.

Watch your emails...

Bid Markups Best Practices

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:01:00 +0000

I often get asked what's the best way to use Bid Markups. My best practice recommendation is to use Item Types markups for your Overhead percentage, then use the Overall Markups for your profit. Example: A bid of $10,000 is first marked up in Item Types by 10% giving a subtotal bid of $11,000. Then using an overall markup of 20% I get a total of $13,200. My total markup dollars in this example are $3,200.

If I only combined the 10 & 20% into 30% in the overall markups, my total would only be $3,000 markup dollars for a total bid of $13,000.

With this suggested method, you end up adding profit dollars on top of your overhead calculation, which insures the best bottom line for you.

Latest Release - Have you got it?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:54:00 +0000

CSG's latest release is dated 02-02-09. Do you have this release? To check and see, open one of your CSG products and choose Help/About from the main file menu across the top. In the gray box look for the "Release Date". If it says 02-02-09, you have our latest enhancements and patches. Stay current by going to our customers area of the CSG website. Just click here to go directly to the customers login area. Hint: You'll need your customer webcode for the login & password. Don't have it? Call us at 651-777-7716 x 2,2 and we'll be happy to assist.

From the CST Team, thank you!

IRS Releases New Tax Tables

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:00:00 +0000

At the end of February, the IRS released a new Circular E publishing the new revised tax tables for payroll withholding. CSG has updated our "tax tables" page of the www.csgsoftware.com website under the Customers area. Simply login with your web code, download the PDF and make the appropriate changes per the instructions in your payroll setup.