The AEC community will invariably concur that cost estimation of projects is probably the most vital part of the pre-construction phase, for any project. What good is a great design if it's not cost-effective, right? Therefore, today we will talk about the top 5 design and construction cost estimation templates.
A construction cost estimation is required at the end of design because the client will approve of only that design that can be built in his budget. No one has unlimited budget, and so your design has to be built in the budget the client specified. This is where construction cost estimation comes in.
Now, the problem is, constructing a building is a pretty complicated work. Even if you are building small projects, like a small residential house, you still have to take care of a lot of moving parts. The human mind simply isn't capable of remembering all the small details and tally them in head. Hence, you need a preformatted sheet to calculate the cost estimate of your project.
There are many such design and construction cost estimation templates available, but which one do you need for your project? Let's talk about the top 5 design and construction cost estimation templates below.
Shawn McCadden suggests that you separate the labor costs from the materials cost and handle them piece by piece. His cost estimation template is divided into the following:
You have to manage each part separately in McCadden's sheet. This gives you the added advantage of figuring out a gross profit before you have to decide on a selling price - which may or may not be done by someone else.
These sorts of templates are particularly great for constructors who are used to having unique combinations of building requests from clients. Often these unique instructions require different types of labor and supplier management - so if you're facing that type of odd requests commonly, you'd better use this template.
The labor and materials cost estimation template of Shawn McCadden is available here:
Among construction cost estimation templates, this one is quite unique since the Budget vs Actual Costs Template is especially good for comparing the costs expected and projected. This is a quite simplistic template greatly suitable for smaller projects. Focusing on how the budget is managed throughout the project workflow is how this template works and could be very useful for projects that aren't much complicated and would finish in a short while.
The Budget vs Actual Costs Template gives you a high-level product specification sheet to calculate your project costs. You have an easy but highly adaptable working mechanism provided via this sheet, which will also let you figure out how well you're doing in terms of the provided budget. Another great thing about this sheet is that it adds a whopping whole 10% extra contingency costs to the totals, in case you run into any issues.
You can get the Budget vs Actual Costs Template here:
https://www.fohlio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/budget-actual-estimate-template.xlsx
However, it is available for personal use only.
While it is not exactly a cost estimating sheet, the Building Advisor site is great for the constructors for deciding if their building design is realistically acceptable under expected budget or not. Not only builders can estimate the various costs for a project using their templates, they can also use them for record-keeping.
The general template the Building Advisor site gives is nicely laid out in minute details of the general requirements and site preparation respectively and manages then separately. This gives you the advantage of dividing your actual construction costs and auxiliary costs - and delegate them, if necessary.
This sheet divides labor costs and material costs for each category, and provides a real-life cost value beside the estimated cost value, so that you can easily see how close to reality your estimates were. This template, obviously is built to last throughout the project, not only just for the beginning.
You can see the options about how to get the Building Advisor Construction Cost Estimator sheet here:
https://buildingadvisor.com/project-management/estimating-overview-2/
Categorizing everything into soft and hard costs, this construction cost estimating template is especially useful for builders who focus on residential and light commercial construction entirely. In these matters, costs can be defined as soft costs, that are not directly related to building a structure but you have to pay them anyway, like legal fees. The rest of the expenses that go directly into constructing the building are called hard costs.
Hard costs can be further divided into Drywall and Completion. Drywall costs include what you need to do to erect a structure like walls and floors, and completion includes expenses what you need to do after erecting the walls like plumbing and electrifications. These categorizations are obviously going to be very useful for constructors who generally erect small housing and shops.
This small but handy Soft Costs vs Hard Costs Template can be downloaded here:
https://www.fohlio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/designconstruction.xlsx
