How Countfire helps small businesses produce fast, professional estimates

For small estimating businesses providing fast, accurate and professional services is crucial for success.

Sanders Project Management are using Countfire to provide top quality estimates with more precision and speed than ever before. We caught up with Director Neil to find out more. 

About Sanders Project Management

Neil founded Sanders Project Management back in 2014. Originally established to manage engineering projects, the Limited Company now specialises in providing electrical estimating services for small businesses across Suffolk and East Anglia, with projects ranging from £5k to around £2.5million. 

The pitfalls of manual estimating 

Like many estimators, Neil found manual estimating to be a laborious and often costly process. He describes the time-consuming (and space-consuming) task of printing off all the enquiries and drawings, and then meticulously going through each one with a highlighter and clicker.

Working solo, Neil would have to juggle a number of distractions during the day-to-day running of his business, which would make concentrating on manually counting takeoffs almost impossible.

He describes being in the middle of a large takeoff when the phone would ring, or an urgent enquiry would come through. “Inevitably I would end up losing count and have to go through the whole process again - reprinting the drawings and hoping to get it finished before another distraction.”

Neil also recognised that, in order to keep up with the rapidly evolving estimating industry, his estimates needed to be as professional and consistent as possible, which was often difficult to achieve with the traditional method. So he set out to find a solution that would enable him to improve his offering.

Faster, professional estimates with Countfire

After starting a trial with Countfire, Neil immediately saw it ticked every box. “I loved that I could just stop what I was doing, answer the phone, look back at the screen again and think ‘right, where did I get to?’ And just carry on working - that was absolutely fantastic.”

Neil also believes that creating a professional, orderly document for clients is imperative for his business - and Countfire helps him to do just that. 

“The feedback from my clients is that they actually look forward to receiving my estimates - they love the Excel spreadsheet that Countfire creates as it’s easy to understand, laid out perfectly and consistent every time. They continue to use my services as they know they are getting the added benefits of Countfire.”

Despite being a small business in a world of big players, Neil is able to offer the same level of accuracy and professionalism expected from a larger corporation. “My clients have confidence in my numbers as they know it’s done accurately. It’s not just numbers on the back of a cigarette packet!” he laughs. 

Neil is thrilled with the amount of projects he’s able to undertake since using Countfire and says he’s been able to complete estimates “at least 10 times faster.” Because of this, he’s been able to take on more projects, and he says he’s even able to get entire estimates completed in around 2 hours.

And another nifty feature Neil gives a special mention to? “The fact that you can put forward your ideas for improving Countfire and actively monitor the progress. The suggestions don’t just go into a black hole somewhere - the Countfire team listens to their customers and are constantly improving the product to make it the best on the market.”

Closing thoughts

According to Neil, the speed and accuracy that he is now able to achieve in producing estimates has been instrumental in enabling him and his business to remain competitive in the estimating industry, and he couldn’t be more pleased. 

“There's so many things I like about Countfire. It's quick, it's professional, and the ability to easily pick up where you left off makes life so much easier. It totally revolutionised the way I run my business and allowed me to take on so many more projects. I couldn’t go back to working without it now.”

If you’d like to see how Countfire can level up your business, start your free 14-day trial today.

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