- 1
Open Company Settings
In the sidebar, open Administration and choose Company. Fill in your company name and address first — a bid can't be started until they're there, and they print on every bid PDF.
- 2
Open Bid Rate Defaults
Click the Bid Rate Defaults card to open it. These are the rates every new bid starts with.
- 3
Choose a calculation method
Pick Price-based or Cost-plus. Price-based treats your percentages as a share of the selling price (the way most estimators think of margin). Cost-plus adds them on top of cost. The same numbers give different prices, so choose the one you bid with today.
- 4
Enter overhead, margins and tax
Fill in Overhead %, then Margin — Materials %, Margin — Labor / Equipment %, Margin — Subcontractors % and Margin — Other %. Set Tax Rate % to your county's sales tax — it's applied to taxable materials only.
- 5
Save
Click Save Settings. You'll see “Settings saved.” These rates apply to bids you create from now on.
Tutorial 01
Set up your company's rates
Enter your overhead, margins and sales tax once. Every new bid starts from them, and you can override any of them on a single job.
Try it on your next bid
TrenchIQ is in a closed beta for contractors who bid unit-price work. Founding Testers get the estimating free, for as long as we offer it.