Getting Started with

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Projects and Jobs
In Cubit Estimating, your estimates are created in a Job, and Jobs are organised in Projects.

You can create a Project from the Job Manager by clicking New Project from the ribbon.

Figure 1 Creating a New Project

The Job Details you enter for a Project are carried through to any Job you create within that Project,
including Job Description, Site Address and Company and Contact details.

To create a new Job, ensure you select the Project you want that Job to appear in. Then, click New Job in
the ribbon

Figure 2 Creating a New Job

When you create a new Job, you will be able to select a Template to use, and name that Job.

You can open a Job by double clicking it, or clicking Open from the ribbon.

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Inside a Job
A Job in Cubit Estimating is broken up into different panes to make it easier to navigate and work on
exactly the part of your job you want to estimate at any given time.

The main parts of a Job are the ribbon, the Estimate pane, the Viewport, the status bar and details panes.

Figure 3 Primary Components of Cubit Estimating

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Estimate pane
Most of your estimating will be done from the Estimate pane, which is divided up into three sections, Item
Sheet, Calculation Sheet and Rate Sheet.

Item Sheet

The Item Sheet is where your Trades, Headings and Items are located. This is where you build your
estimate. Most importantly you can enter a Quantity and Rate for an Item, which multiply together to give
you a Total. It will also take into calculation any values entered into other columns such as Factor and
Markup. You can right click on any of the column headings and select “Column Chooser’’ to drag and
drop columns in to customise your estimate sheet to suit your needs.

Each Item has its own Calculation Sheet and Rate Sheet which can be used to build up the respective
quantities and rates for these Items. When using a Calculation Sheet, the total of it will be reflected in the
Quantity of the Item. When using a Rate Sheet, the total cost will be reflected in the Rate of the Item.

Figure 4 Example Item Sheet

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Calculation Sheet

When you takeoff quantities from a Plan, your results will automatically be populated in the Calculation
Sheet for any selected Item. You can also manually build up these quantities, entering a Factor, Length,
Width, and Depth. You can also add additional columns, such as Wastage, Conversion, and No. for
further control via the ‘’Column Chooser’’

Figure 5 Example Calculation Sheet

Rate Sheet

Rate Sheet allows you to build up composite rates or assemblies for an individual item. You can enter
material, labour, plant, subbie and other costs into the rate sheet to help you calculate costs per unit such
as m, m2 and m3 rates. You can also insert rates from price lists into the rate sheet, You can add
additional columns, such as Wastage, Conversion, and Factor via the ‘’Column Chooser’’

Figure 6 Example Rate Sheet

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Navigation Breadcrumbs

The Navigation Breadcrumb is a toolbar to help you find where you are in the Estimate. It can be found
at the bottom of the Item Sheet. This toolbar will display the Trade, Headings, and Item you have
selected, allowing you at a click to change the focus to another Trade, or Heading, or Item. The Navigation
Breadcrumb not only makes it easy to navigate, but provides context on where in your Estimate you are if
you’re looking through a Calculation Sheet or Rate Sheet.

Figure 7 Navigation Breadcrumb in use

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Trades, Headings & Items
In Cubit Estimating, your Estimate is built up using Trades. Within a Trade you can have sub headings and
Estimate Items that you enter quantities and rates against to calculate a total.

Creating Trades
Trades are typically the first heading for a group of items in an estimate.

To insert a Trade:

1. Select a row in the Item sheet.

2. Click Insert Trade from the Estimate toolbar.
Tip: The Keyboard shortcut for this is Ctrl + T
3. The new Trade will appear above the selected row.
4. Enter a name for your Trade.

Figure 8 Inserting a Trade

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Creating Headings
Headings are contained within Trades, and can help keep them organised.

To insert a Heading:

1. Select the Trade in the Item sheet where you want to insert your heading.
2. Click Insert Heading from the Estimate toolbar.
Tip: The Keyboard shortcut for this is Ctrl + H
3. The new heading will appear within the selected Trade.
4. Enter a name for this heading.
Tip: When inserting a Heading, a new Item will automatically be created within
that Heading.

Figure 9 Inserting a Heading

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Creating Items
Items are used for calculating Quantities and Rates. You can utilise the Calculation Sheet and Rate Sheet
for Quantities and Rates, repetitively, or enter values manually, or insert formulas to link values from one
cell to another using the @ symbol. TSUM and SUM formulas may also be entered to total a group of
values from a range of cells.

To insert an Item:
1. Select the Trade or heading in the Item sheet where you want to insert your Item.
2. Click Insert Item from the Estimate toolbar.
Tip: The Keyboard shortcut for this is Ctrl + I
3. The new Item will appear within the selected Trade or heading.

Figure 10 Inserting an Item

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Plans
Plans in Cubit Estimating are designed to be easy to insert and organise, so you can take off quantities
from plans quickly and accurately.

Inserting
Cubit Estimating supports multiple file formats that can be inserted as plans.

Supported vector files: PDF, DWG, DXF.

Supported raster files: PDF, JPG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
Supported BIM files: IFC (required Enterprise version of Cubit Estimating)

Supported Plans can be inserted into an Open Job.

To insert a Plan:
1. Click Insert, from the Plans tab in the ribbon, or from the ‘’Insert’’ button in the Viewport.
2. In the Open window, browse your computer for the folder where your Plan files are saved.
3. You can select one or more Plans to insert at any one time. You can select multiple plans
by holding CTRL and clicking on each file you would like to insert.
4. Click Open.
5. If you’ve selected files with multiple pages, Select PDF pages will open and you can
control which pages you wish to insert out of the binder.
6. Click Import to load these pages.

Figure 11 Inserting a Plan

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Scaling
In most cases, CAD plans will automatically scale themselves. All other files will require to be scaled. By
default, you will be prompted to scale a Plan after importing it.

You can change your scale at any time by clicking Scale from the Plans tab in the ribbon.
From the Scale Plan window you will see the name of the Active Plan you are scaling and the Current
scale for that Plan.

Figure 12 Scaling a Plan

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Optimising
If your PDF Plan appears to have missing or unexpected graphical elements, you can optimise it by
clicking Flatten PDF in the ribbon from the Plan Options group on the Plans tab. This will also
automatically enable Rasterise Text, to ensure any text is easy to read.

If you have a multi-coloured Plan, you can enable Single Colour to simplify your Plan in the Viewport.

Figure 13 Plan Optimisation options

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Takeoff
Utilising a plan in the Viewport, you can takeoff quantities for one or multiple Items at once, and your
estimate will update automatically with the relevant quantities once you complete the shape. Each item in
the estimate sheet can have multiple shapes from the Viewport linked to it.

Result Types
Setting Result Types to your Items is crucial to an estimate. Your takeoff requires Result Types so that
your estimate knows what values to assign to your Items.

Result Types can be set from the Result column in the Item sheet.

Results are divided into different categories.

Dimension Results include: Area, Length, Length less openings, Length by centre, Volume, Volume
by length, Vertical area, and Vertical area less openings.

Count Results include: Count, Window Counts, and Door Counts.

You can also mark an item as a ‘’Note’’ so it will appear on print reports or ‘’Exclude from Total’’ if you wish
to exclude the items value from an estimate and report.

Figure 14 Result Types

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Drawing
Once an Item, with a Result Type, is selected you can draw over a plan and generate your quantities.

Depending on what you’re trying to takeoff, will depend on what drawing tool is best to use.

Figure 15 Drawing tools

If you have a closed area on a plan, you can use Auto Select for your takeoff. Auto Select will calculate
an area surrounding your cursor. This only works for vector plans.

If you’re trying to takeoff specific quantities that go over multiple lines and use multiple areas, like a
ceiling, or floor surface, you can use Polyline. Polyline is one of the most versatile drawing tools, where
you can click a corner or pivot point, or create curved lines. Polyline works well with all plans, even raster
based ones.

If you’re trying to takeoff a simple four sided area, you can use the Rectangle tool. It creates a square or
rectangular shape using two mouse clicks, one for opposite corners. It works for all Plan types, and is
easy to do.

If your plan has clear lines, you can trace these automatically with Pick Lines. When using Pick Lines,
you hover your cursor over the line you want to takeoff, and it will highlight what the line will look like. You
can takeoff multiple lines, connecting them together. Clicking the right-mouse will complete the shape you
were drawing. This only works for vector plans.

If you would like to create a curve, try holding down the left mouse button.

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The “Takeoff” pane
Prior to drawing a shape on your plan, you can set the parameters of it from the Takeoff pane.

These parameters will affect all applicable items that you have selected.

Figure 16 Takeoff Pane

For example, if your estimate requires walls at 3100mm high, you can set that height in the new task
pane. Each shape you create will then host that parameter and calculate accordingly when you use
“vertical area” or “vertical area less openings” in the Result column of your Estimate.

You can also name the shape, or create shapes as deductions by using the Takeoff pane.

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Why Can’t I Draw on my Plan?
If you find you can’t draw on your Plan, the reason is most likely because of one of these 4 reasons.

1. No Result Type set

If you have an Item selected, to complete takeoff that Item will need to have a Result Type set.

2. Select an item
You can only takeoff quantities for an Item. If you have a Trade or Heading selected, you won’t be able to
takeoff quantities for it. Ensure that you don’t have a Trade or Heading selected. If you’re looking to trace
your takeoff, ensure also that you don’t have, for example, an Item with a Count Result Type selected.

3. No Shape Tool selected

Once you have selected the right Item, ensure you select the right Drawing Tool. If you have an Item with
an Area or Length Result Type, for example, ensure you don’t have a Count tool selected, and vice versa.
You might also have a Viewport tool selected, like Pan.

4. Unscaled Plan
Don’t forget to scale your Plan! It’s an easy step to miss, but must be done before you can takeoff
quantities.

5. Trade is not locked

If you are using the Enterprise server version of Cubit Estimating and access a job in ‘’Shared’’ mode and
not ‘’Exclusive’’ mode, you will need to lock a trade so you can have full edit permissions to items within
that trade

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Generating Reports
There is a range of different reports that can be generated from an estimate, each report presents different
information about your Job. You can also export your Estimate for Microsoft Excel. You can access
Reports and Excel exports from the Data tab in the ribbon.

Figure 17 Data tab

Trade Reports
Of all the reports you have access to, the Trade Report is one of the most flexible. This report will show
information only from the Item Sheet, and you can utilise different parameters. You can Adjust rates by
markup to include Job wide markups into the Item Rates, Strip rates entirely and Hide Items, to show
only Totals for Trades and Headings.

You can access the Trade Report by clicking Trades from in the ribbon on the Data tab. Clicking the
arrow under Trades, will bring up different Trade Report presents, utilising different parameters.

Figure 18 Trade Reports

Reports can be saved as a PDF, XLSL, or DOCX, among other file types.

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Export to Excel
Although you can export any report to a Microsoft Excel file, you can also export your Estimate directly.
You can export your entire Estimate, with pre-set columns and row styles. The benefit of this, is that if you
update Quantities or Rates, your Totals will update.

You can export your estimate to Excel by clicking Export in the Excel group from the Data tab in the
ribbon.

Figure 19 An example Excel file from Cubit Estimating

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 Buildsoft Support &
Contacts

Phone
(+61) 2 4626 4909
1300 133 745

Email
support@[Link]

Website
[Link]/support

YouTube Page
[Link]

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