See How HeavyBid Can Help You Bid Faster
Quickly Import DOT Data
Reduce time spent building your estimate by directly importing items from DOT websites.
Quickly Build an Entire Estimate
Activities and bid items can be built on the fly, copied from any previous estimate, or pulled from a list of standardized activities of work. In this example, see how fast you can build a complete DOT estimate.
Populate Quote Folders and Analyze Quotes
Quickly pull estimate details into quote folders. Solicit quotes and analyze them against other subcontractors or your own self-performed work then update your estimate with the quotes you’ve selected.
Copy from Past Estimates
Improve productivity dramatically by copying from previous bids and automatically computing numbers.
Use Custom Calculation Routines
Build your own repetitive calculations in a library to quickly perform complex calculations. You specify the inputs, compute the outputs, and then map the final output numbers into cells in the estimate.
Build Elaborate Repetitive Structures with Assemblies
Quickly build multiple items using assemblies which allow you to select items needed for an estimate while saving information in your notes.
Look at Production History While Estimating
Access your production history to compare your most recent bid to previous bids and actual, completed jobs if you own our HeavyJob software.
Bi-directional Interface to P6 and MS Project
Easily import from Primavera or Microsoft Project to HeavyBid, where they can be reviewed to meet requirements then re-exported.
Grow Your Business by Managing and Tracking Prospective Work
How HeavyBid Fits Into the HCSS Suite
YOUR BUSINESS
HeavyBid
- Unit price & lump sum bids
- Rapid estimate creation from:
- Libraries
- Past estimates
- Calculation routines
- Assemblies
- DOT imports
- RSMeans data (option)
- Richardson data (option)
- Analysis tools
- Rapid change tools
- Comparisons to estimate and actual production history (w HeavyJob)
- Invitation to bid
- Quote management
- Cost spreading routines
- Multiple pricing options
- Multiple bid proposal formats
- Electronic bid submittals
- Budget export to accounting
- Budget export to HeavyJob
- RFIs (2018)
HCSS Plans
- Quantity takeoff
- Annotation capabilities
- Document control
- Version control
HeavyJob
- Simple & easy interface
- Diaries
- Time cards
- Progress quantities
- Photos
- Materials & subs
- Production analysis
- Real-time cost feedback
- Production planner
- Needs requests
- Skills & certifications
HCSS Plans
- Quantity takeoff
- Annotation capabilities
- Easy attachment to submittals, etc.
- Instant field to office communication
- Responsibility assignments
- Record “As-Built”
- Document control
- Version control
HCSS Safety
- Meetings
- Inspections
- Observations
- Near misses
- Incidents
- JHAs
- Skills & certifications
HCSS Employee App
- Simple interface
- Clock in/out
- Payroll hour verification
- Equipment inspections
- Safety observations
- Custom items such as “not injured”
- Multi-employee time clock kiosk
- Upcoming schedules (w/ Dispatcher)
- Cost code hours (2018)
HCSS Trucking
- Easy smartphone truck identification
- Easy recording of loads/dumps
- Quantity capture
- Foremen/operators as ticket takers
- Unattended site logging
- Internal & external trucks
HeavyJob
- Time card approvals
- Production reports
- Change orders
- T&M billing
- Forecasting
- Pay estimates
- Job cost reports
- Payroll hour reports
- Accounting TrueUp (w/ DIS)
- RFIs (2018)
- Submittals (2018)
- Document tracking (2018)
- HCSS Plans integration
HCSS Plans
- Quantity takeoff
- Annotation capabilities
- Document control
- Version control
HCSS Safety
- Inspections, Near Misses, Incidents
- Free safety observations for all employees
- Leading indicator analysis from field data
- Closed-loop follow-up process for issues
- 1,000 standard meetings, inspections, JSAs
- Meetings, inspections, & JSAs are customizable
- Critical meeting topics can be pushed to field
- OSHA reporting
- Skills and certifications
- Quality reports (2018)
HCSS Dispatcher
- Electronic “Magnet Board” Scheduling of people, equipment, materials, trucks, inventory, and small tools
- Snapshot of past, present & future
- True up locations vs HeavyJob timecards
- Driver move assignments
- Rentals
- Management of future “needs”
- “Needs” import from HeavyBid
- Foremen “needs” from HeavyJob
- Crew export to HeavyJob
- Dispatching report to HeavyJob
- Show up instructions to employees
HCSS Safety
- Inspections, near misses, incidents
- Free safety observations for all employees
- Leading Indicator analysis from field data
- Closed-loop follow up process for issues
- 1,000 standard meetings, inspections, JSAs
- Meetings, inspections, & JSAs are customizable
- Critical meeting topics can be pushed to the field
- OSHA reporting
- Skills and certifications
- Quality reports starting in 2018
HCSS Inspections
- Equipment Inspections
- Field Equipment Inspection Data
- Drive Vehicle Inspection Reports
- Pre and post-trip inspections
- Customized inspections
HCSS Forms
- Free with HeavyJob or Safety
- Customizable mobile forms
- PDF fillable forms
- Autofill from Time Cards (w HeavyJob)
Equipment Maintenance
- Preventive maintenance
- Work orders
- Work order Assignment/Scheduling
- Mobile mechanic app
- Equipment repair history
- Equipment inspections
- Field equipment inspection data
- Field maintenance requests
- Automated meter readings (w/ GPS)
- Telematics data reporting (w/ GPS)
- Warranty tracking
- Inventory/parts management
- Utilization reporting
- Idle time reporting
- Replace or repair dashboard
Fuel Tracking
- Mobile phone app
- Fuel & fluid tracking
- For fuel truck drivers, foremen, lowboy drivers, etc.
- Transactions to/from trucks/tanks
- Third-party fuel card interfaces
- Fuel charged to equipment/jobs
- Fuel analysis report
Telematics/GPS
- Mixed fleet data in one location
- HCSS GPS hardware
- OEM GPS data integration
- Aggregated HCSS + OEM GPS data
- Interface to other HCSS Software
- Location, meter, idle time, fuel level, fault codes
- Stolen equipment alerts
- Geofence entry/exit logs
- Mobile geofence reporting
- Cycle time reporting
- Equipment utilization reporting
- Customized alerts:Speeding, hard braking, etc.
Trucking
- Automation of truck tickets
- Simple & accurate verification of loads
- Quantity capture
- Fewer payment conflicts & discrepancies
- Possible elimination of ticket takers
- Unattended site logging
- Internal & external trucks
- Integration with HeavyJob
- Broker portal with real-time reporting
- More (2018)
D.O.T. & Other Interfaces
- Nearly all state DOTs
- Download of biditems
- Download of avg. bid prices
- Upload of bid prices
- Some cities & counties
- Private services such as Amtek
- Spreadsheets
Payroll & Accounting Interfaces
- Budget export from HeavyBid
- Payitem export from HeavyBid
- Vendors and subs from HeavyBid
- JD Edwards (custom)
- Labor & equipment hours from HeavyJob
- Quantities from HeavyJob
- Jobs, equipment, employees & cost codes to HeavyJob
Accounting Systems
- Viewpoint family
- Dexter & Chaney
- Sage family
- JD Edwards (custom)
- CMIC (custom)
- Foundation
- Explorer family
- Quickbooks
- PeachTree
- Most Others
Backed By:
Cloud Hosting
Professional Services
Used to Bid Work for Some of the Top Construction Companies
Companies of All Sizes Trust HCSS for Bidding and Estimating
We’re used by more than 50,000 estimators across 4,000 companies, including 48 of the ENR Top 50 Heavy Civil Contractors.
What Our HeavyBid Customers Are Saying
It definitely increased our revenue, increased our market share, and ultimately increased our profitability.
Phillippe Falkner
Operations Manager
Ed Bell Construction
Play Full Response (0:43)
To tell you the truth I’m not sure how we would estimate if we didn’t have HeavyBid.
Hal Fuglevand
Vice President
Knife River
Play Full Response (0:36)
HeavyBid allows us to adapt to what the market is demanding.
Daniel Buckley
Senior Vice President
Anchor Construction
Play Full Response (0:40)
We are able to kick out more estimates, more accurately.
Jerry Middleton
Chief Estimator
Ford Construction
Play Full Response (0:24)
We’re now spending more time in those bids, thinking critically about how we should bid the job.
Jake Anderson
Project Controls Manager
Austin Bridge & Road, LP
Play Full Response (0:25)
Case Studies
Frequently Asked Questions About HeavyBid
HeavyBid comes in three different levels to fit companies of all sizes, from small contractors typically bidding projects worth $100,000+ to large contractors bidding projects in the billions of dollars.
The typical HeavyBid customer is an infrastructure contractor that builds highways, bridges, dams, tunnels, airports, railroads, utilities, pipelines, or wastewater treatment plants or does earthwork such as land clearing, excavation and mining. These contractors use crews and heavy equipment and typically do unit price work, such as DOT work or non-typical large facilities like stadiums and power plants. Those wanting to standardize their vertical and horizontal construction divisions, or job owners and engineering firms needing to make capital budget estimates may also use HeavyBid.
Yes. A huge percentage of our customers do DOT work. In fact, HeavyBid can download bid items from most states’ DOTs and export prices back to their DOT applications.
Yes. In fact, that is a major benefit of HeavyBid over spreadsheets. For example, we have had joint ventures estimated from multiple companies in multiple locations with as many as 25 estimators working on the same bid at once.
Yes. Even if you have a network, HCSS recommends having HeavyBid on standalone laptops as a backup in case of network or internet failure near bid time.
HeavyBid is a multi-user software system that eliminates the formula errors and version issues of spreadsheets. HeavyBid allows you to build well-documented estimates that will be accessible as long as you need them, and it allows you to build complicated estimates with ease. In addition, HeavyBid provides you with instant 24/7 customer support for your last-minute bids and complicated estimates.
No. HeavyBid has been used to build joint ventures worth more than $4 Billion, and it is not uncommon to have 500 to 1,000 bid items in a unit price bid. In fact, we’ve seen estimates with more than 10,000 resources used in one HeavyBid estimate.
Yes. HCSS is proud of our 24/7/365 instant support based at our Sugar Land, Texas, campus. You can expect support from a knowledgeable technician in three rings or less, and expect that our staff will bend over backwards to help you get your bid in on time.
A typical implementation is two to four days at your office with one of our professional estimators, most having more than 20 years of estimating experience. HeavyBid Basic usually requires two days. HeavyBid Advanced three days, and Comprehensive four days. We actually expect you to be using HeavyBid for your estimating after we leave. Implementation for multi-divisional companies will take longer.
Yes. Several cities, engineering firms, and public utilities use HeavyBid for that purpose. We also interface with RSMeans and Richardson’s pricing data.
HeavyBid’s activity codes map to project management codes in Microsoft Project and Primavera P3, P5, and P6. HeavyBid then exports activities and durations, along with resources, to the project management software. Modified schedules and durations can then be imported back into HeavyBid, which can then be studied to see what has to be done to the estimate to achieve the new schedules.
HeavyBid provides standard interfaces at no charge to more than 30 accounting systems, including Viewpoint, Dexter & Chaney, Sage 300 (Timberline), QuickBooks, Foundation, Explorer, and other popular accounting software programs. Some interfaces require custom programming at an additional charge – including JD Edwards, SAP, CMIC, and sometimes Viewpoint.
Yes. You can add to or modify a copy of the original estimate, or you can create a change order estimate.
Yes. More than 50,000 estimators in the United States and Canada currently use HeavyBid.
Yes. We are proud of our references. Thousands are available here
HeavyBid is professional estimating software designed to handle anything that will come up in estimates ranging from hundreds of thousands to billions of dollars. If most of your estimates are under $100,000, there are likely less expensive and more appropriate solutions. Typically, HeavyBid’s cost is less than $3,000 per estimator per year although it is sold as concurrent licenses and thus two or three part-time estimators and/or project managers could be sharing one license. Depending on the efficiency of your current estimating methods you should expect to improve estimator productivity from 25% to 100%. Don’t forget that we provide instant 24/7/365 support which could be invaluable just before an important bid.
Our HeavyBid users tell us they are able to double their estimating output compared to spreadsheets and improve estimating productivity between 25 to 50% compared to other estimating software systems. This allows increasing your company’s bid volume without hiring additional estimators as well as improving the quality of your estimates from spending more time analyzing the estimate rather than doing tedious work. If you integrate it with HCSS HeavyJob, in addition to the HeavyJob cost savings, your entire company becomes more efficient by tying the estimate and actual job data together for easy access by both estimators and project management.
HeavyBid’s coding system makes it easier to standardize across your company and to store data, such as costs, crews, productions and material, against those codes. A flexible coding structure also allows individual estimators or company divisions to have some latitude within the general framework to customize for their specialized way of estimating. If using HCSS HeavyJob, a consistent coding structure will allow you to look at actual job data with one keystroke while building your estimate and bring that back into your estimate as supporting notes.
Communication between the field and the office is the key to an efficient, profitable company. HeavyBid provides your estimators’ productions, notes, crews, and calculations to anyone using HeavyJob field management software and provides feedback from the field to your estimators which they can use in the future to justify their estimates of production. Also, at many companies, the estimators are the project managers and they will be in and out of both products constantly including estimating change orders while running the job.
If you purchase a HeavyBid Enterprise license, then each division of your company can have its own code libraries with their own data, and you will still be able to pool the concurrent user count across your enterprise.
Maybe. HeavyBid saves the most time for companies whose estimates include a lot of resources, crews, alternate construction methods, and a lot of thinking and analysis required to make a competitive bid. While HeavyBid works for any kind of estimating, there are more targeted solutions for many trade specialities such as mechanical, electrical, or roofing.
HCSS does have a number of construction customers with both infrastructure and vertical construction divisions, so if you are looking to standardize both groups on the same software, HeavyBid works much better for vertical construction than vertical software does for infrastructure construction.
Yes. With HCSS Cloud, HCSS takes care of system hardware, backups, and updates while giving you completely secure data and high availability. Your users will have the fastest performance possible, reducing your IT expenses and overhead.
Yes. HCSS has had Users Group Meetings every year since 1989. We currently host two meetings each year, in January and February, with more than 1,500 users in attendance – around half of them are estimators. At HCSS Users Group Meetings, you will learn from both HCSS and other customers on how to improve your estimating, suggest additions or changes to improve the software, and learn about other HCSS products to improve your productivity.
Estimate entry into HeavyBid is typically nearly instant, regardless of estimate size, and reports rarely take more than one minute to produce. Major changes throughout a large estimate (such as a change to a labor rate that is used 300 times) may take a minute or so, and the bid summary process (summarizing the bid and running cost-spreading routines to arrive at unit prices) might take 7 or 8 minutes on an estimate with many thousands of resources.
Yes, in 2018 four customers returned their HeavyBid and in 2019 there were 11 who did so. About half of those found that it was not going to work for their type of work and the rest for an assortment of reasons. At HCSS, we believe that you should be delighted with both our software and support, and that it should be a dramatic improvement over your current process – if it is not, we don’t expect you to pay for it.
