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RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks)

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5 Reviews and Ratings

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What is RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks)?

RSMeans data, from Gordian (formerly Costworks) is a construction and estimation software offering acquired by the Gordian Group in 2014. It includes cost books and construction project estimating software tools.

Categories & Use Cases

RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks) Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks) has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 5 ratings of RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks)'s features
View all RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks) features

Top Performing Features

  • Job costing

    Tracking and monitoring of the costs of all materials, labor, subcontractors, & equipment required for a given construction project. Allows users to compare actual costs to estimated costs, see how the job is progressing, identify which parts of the job are using the largest parts of the budget.

    Category average: 7.3

  • Cost databases

    Pulls information from online databases and aggregates it to allow contractors to compare prices of materials from different suppliers.

    Category average: 7.5

  • Cost calculator

    Application that calculates cost of estimated quantities and materials, typically within spreadsheets.

    Category average: 7.7

Areas for Improvement

  • Bid creation

    Allows users to use bid packages or templates to quickly and efficiently create bids based off of cost estimates.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Takeoff tools

    Allow users to list the materials and quantities they will need for the project either manually from hardcopy blueprints or electronically from digital blueprints.

    Category average: 7.4

Who Buys & Uses RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks)

RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks) Reviews

What users are saying about RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks).
View all RSMeans data, from Gordian (Costworks) reviews

Great help with large construction project costs

Incentivized
Robert Bass
Vice President of Engineering in Engineering at Wiley Wilson (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • unit costs of construction materials
  • labor rates for large projects

Cons

  • small project costs where labor is a bigger portion than materials on cost
  • markup factors on governmental projects

Return on Investment

  • Good - it saves a lot of time on producing estimates

Other Software Used

Microsoft Office 2016, Deltek Vision, Kofax Power PDF (formerly Nuance Power PDF)

CostWorks: Building Modeling at it's best and a very in-depth detail-item database

Incentivized
Bryan T. Piper, CCPView profile
Eastern Regional Estimating Manger of Design in Engineering at McKissack & McKissack (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • CostWorks is very good at generating quick and valid estimates for standardized facilities such as office buildings, schools, etc. It allows you to validate other cost estimates at the UniFormat level when doing an estimate validation.
  • CostWorks' database of detailed line-items is a very resourceful asset when it comes to finding a very specific line-item. Sometimes, when using Success or MII, I will have CostWorks open on the other screen so I can find an item that the other softwares just don't have and build it into the other software from the CostWorks entry.
  • CostWorks does a very good job of generating reports that are both well-developed and have enough detail at the summary level to be able to sit with a client or a project manager and have them follow along and understand without being overwhelmed with detail and numbers.

Cons

  • When I export a CostWorks project into Excel, it only hardcodes the entries and does not utilize the calculating functions of Excel. If I have to make adjustments, based on the client's request, I have to go into each hard-coded cell and build the formula that calculates that raw number.
  • Also when exporting to Excel, the report has to immediately be reformatted for column-width and vertical spacing that should already be part of the export script.
  • When building a SF model in CostWorks, sometimes there is a need to use a square footage that is outside the boundaries of CostWorks. There should be some override function that will allow you to continue without having to continually override the maximum or minimum SF entries.

Return on Investment

  • I don't really see any "negative" impacts on my business or my ROI by purchasing CostWorks. It's a valuable tool that we use, however, some of my colleagues do not use it or use it very infrequently.
  • I find it well worth the cost even though we don't develop complete estimates in CostWorks due to client dictated softwares.
  • It has provided very quickly-built estimating models that let our team and project managers know that the RFP or the task that they are contemplating bidding on or starting to work on is actually feasible to construction given the budget and directive.

Alternatives Considered

MII, PACES, Timberline and Success

Other Software Used

Sage Estimating, Success Enterprise, Bluebeam Revu