Integration with Estimating Software?

Hi Kyle,

That’s actually a great question — and not at all naive.

You’re absolutely right that integrating takeoff and estimating (so quantities automatically flow into cost items, rate libraries, markups, etc.) is hard.

AI-assisted PDF quantity extraction (just starting to work reliably) — you upload drawings and it identifies footing types, lengths, and areas.

So, yes — people are trying this, but no single software does it perfectly yet.

Joining the conversation here... Why is this such a difficult thing? Esticom seems to do this fairly well... having an all-inclusive takeoff+estimating tool would be sooooo amazing, as a small EC we would love to have more options than just Esticom and Stack...

Thank you @Gordan for joining the conversation. Just to clarify, this is an open forum where everyone is welcome to contribute and every input counts. Feel free to share your thoughts, and please be mindful of keeping the discussion respectful for everyone.

This is a challenging area, and Esticom has developed strong capabilities in handling it effectively, while others are also actively working on solutions, but as I've said, "no single software has perfected it yet".

Just to name a few:

Integrated Takeoff + Estimating System (Open-Tool Workflow with Live Pricing & Productivity)

Below is a detailed visual-style workflow showing how data moves between tools like Bluebeam, Excel, Python, and external data sources (supplier APIs, productivity databases) to create a semi-automated takeoff-estimating system.

         ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
         │              INPUT / DRAWINGS                  │
         │                                                │
         │  • Architectural & Structural PDFs             │
         │  • DWG or IFC models (optional)                │
         └──────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┘
                        │
                        ▼
           ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
           │        TAKEOFF & QUANTITY EXTRACTION   │
           │                                        │
           │  🔹 Bluebeam Revu (manual or semi-auto) │
           │      → Custom toolsets tagged by CSI   │
           │  🔹 Python / OpenCV / PDFPlumber script │
           │      → Reads PDFs and extracts areas,  │
           │        lengths, counts (CSV output)    │
           └──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                          │
                          ▼
             ┌────────────────────────────────────┐
             │          DATA CLEANING & MATCHING  │
             │                                    │
             │  🔹 Python or Power Query          │
             │     → Normalises units, merges     │
             │       duplicate elements           │
             │  🔹 Assigns CSI codes or cost keys  │
             └──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
                            │
                            ▼
           ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
           │            COST ESTIMATION LAYER           │
           │                                            │
           │  🔹 Excel Estimating Workbook              │
           │      → Inputs from CSV via PowerQuery      │
           │      → Contains rate library per CSI Div.  │
           │      → Calculates total cost per trade     │
           │  🔹 Python pandas for dynamic updates       │
           │      → Pulls latest supplier prices via API│
           │        (Concrete, Steel, Formwork, etc.)   │
           │      → Imports labour productivity factors │
           │        from CSV or cloud database          │
           └──────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
                          │
                          ▼
             ┌────────────────────────────────────┐
             │   LIVE SUPPLIER & LABOUR DATABASE  │
             │                                    │
             │  🔹 Supplier Price APIs            │
             │     (Bunnings, Reece, Holcim, etc.)│
             │  🔹 Productivity Library (Excel/Py) │
             │     → Labour hours per trade unit   │
             │     → Auto-updates unit rates       │
             │  🔹 Region Adjustment Factors       │
             │     (e.g., Brisbane vs Sydney)      │
             └──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
                            │
                            ▼
             ┌────────────────────────────────────┐
             │       SUMMARY & DASHBOARD          │
             │                                    │
             │  🔹 Excel or PowerBI Dashboard     │
             │     → Visual trade breakdowns      │
             │     → Cost distribution (Div 01–03)│
             │     → Productivity vs Benchmark    │
             │     → Live material price impact   │
             └──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
                            │
                            ▼
                 ┌─────────────────────────────┐
                 │   REPORT / EXPORT MODULE    │
                 │                             │
                 │ 🔹 Auto PDF Cost Reports     │
                 │ 🔹 CSV for accounting system │
                 │ 🔹 API hooks (Xero / MYOB)   │
                 │ 🔹 Versioned project archive │
                 └─────────────────────────────┘

🔄 Data Flow Summary (Enhanced)

1. Bluebeam / Python → CSV Quantities
2. Tagged with CSI codes, auto-imported into Excel.
3. Python / API Fetch → Live Supplier Prices
4. Material unit costs updated daily or on refresh.
5. Productivity Database → Labour Rates
6. Pulls labour-hour benchmarks per trade (adjusted by region).
7. Excel / PowerQuery → Combined Cost Model
8. Dynamic recalculation of total costs by trade and activity.
9. Dashboard → Decision Layer
10. View price impacts, compare suppliers, simulate cost changes.

Future Extensions

• Weather-adjusted productivity factors (auto from BOM API).
• Live carbon impact tracking (for sustainability reporting).
• Machine learning rate forecasting (predicts cost changes based on supplier trends).

Also, 3D BIM model (Revit or IFC) could connect to this same workflow for automatic quantity extraction.

There are numerous formulas to achieve this and I'm sure our ZZ team will achieve it when the time come.

I will say that there's some exciting work happening right now between ZZ and BidBow. There is already an integration that allows you to use the CSV feature to export/import. I hear they're working on a direct API push.

The other difficulty is that sometimes multiple resources are combined into one pay item and that's a sticking point too. Here's how I'm working it right now in my mature workflow. Each of my pay items is referenced to a "codebook code." That code is also used in my estimating software to point towards a pay item and activity. Right now, I have a spreadsheet with all of those pay items and their associated codes. I complete my takeoff and migrate those data from ZZ into that spreadsheet - by hand. (Example, 8" water main, 2,700LF) I put the quantity in column D of that spreadsheet on the appropriate line. At the end of the data entry, I delete all of the blank rows and import the spreadsheet with pay items, quantities, codebook codes, and UOM into the estimating software, merge from the database and all of those line items get an activity with resources, materials, etc.

The way I see the new workflow going (and this is still in its infancy): All takeoff items in ZZ have the codebook code included as a property. I can export that to an excel file, and then merge them into the master spreadsheet using a VBA script that matches the codebook code and then puts the quantity in the appropriate column. Then add in the few things that are not taken off in ZZ (earthwork quantities, mobilizations, etc), import that spreadsheet and I'm off to the races.

The way that the BidBow integration is going to work is that you'll be able to push takeoff quantities straight from ZZ to BidBow, thus taking out the step of migrating to the spreadsheet.

Hi Martin and Kyle, yes we have been working with BidBow.. great company and we already have a set of reports that they are using to create estimates. If anyone reads this I would recommend Bid Bow, from what I have seen it is a very deep software and the price is great also!

BTW, I have already made some integration reports with Sage if anyone is interested in seeing those reach out and I will show you what it looks like and how it works.

Love the input and awesome hearing zzTakeoff is helping other tools! To give you all a update on the Ediphi Integration we got cooking here are some wonderful overview that I sent after our meeting. Great progress as you can see!

1️⃣ CSV Export – UF3, Scope Classification + Use Groups Please add UF3 scope classification and the use group “wizardry” Here is a 5 min video and the attached .csv that goes with it. LINK Note this is the easiest thing to train people on and we are using this now, so if we move to the product workflow in item 4 lets really think about how that complicates this now.

2️⃣ Rooms

I’m still dialing in the workflow, but I just rebuilt our “finish” item templates in this 30-minute video. I’m hoping the ZZTakeoff team watches it and sees how this can tie in (also a ton of UI feedback as I was going). Ediphi team too…. rooms have a ton of potential.

LINK

3️⃣ Assemblies

I’d like to include assemblies in the CSV export as well. This one’s more on the “CSV wizardry” side — it’s all outlined in the video, and I’ve attached a working file that covers everything except rooms (those are a bit different since they’re item-based).

12 Min vid LINK Opps I forgot to keep the use groups in this vid shown on item 1, so make sure use groups also come with it.

4️⃣ Source of Truth – Items or Products

The biggest question right now is where we anchor this. Since we have read API access into the Ediphi database, then we need to decide if everything should be driven by items or products in ZZTakeoff.

Ediphi needs to be the single source of truth, and users should be able to tag and link those items/products so updates stay synced from ediphi to zz. We shouldn’t move forward until that’s clear….. this is the foundation for scaling the integration beyond CSV workflows to all GC’s, so lets really nail this question down. I’m leaning towards the products in zzTakeoff to house the Ediphi items, especially after doing video #3.

Hi Kyle, great videos. I have had the same issue with Code- Name in the Custom Properties, where it grabs both instead of setting just the code number . I will reach out to the dev team here and see if that is intentional or not. I think it would be great if it set bot , but in separate columns or values.

Just a quick update, just finished an export to CSV or Excel Report for ProCore. While these are not API's... yet... It is interesting how easy it is to create these in ZZ. I'm curious, is there anyone in the community that would like to dig into other reports that can be used to insert data into other PM or accounting software? I would like to see what you are using and see how zz can assist if possible. This would be a great Thursday Webinar discussion BTW. Any QB or Buildertrend users out there?

A Sandbox mtg would be even better.

@Todd,

I'm excited we will have the ability change column headers names in the .csv export, do we have that ability already and is that what you did for the procore mockup?

Food for thought as we are trying to connect 2D to estimate at a project level sooner than later. We are going after a Kaiser project and they have a strict WBS, I can easily import these into our estimating tool to cross code our line items, but ideally in the future I would also like to do this in the takeoff tool. Note that this would be a project specific WBS and not a global WBS. Few other things along with proejct WBS's needed to really kick this to the next level in zzTakeoff:

1. Be able to turn on/off the WBS's in zzTakeoff to only see the ones you want to see. For example I could care less about "Ediphi Product ID" in my below screen shot and need to turn that off.
2. Need to beable to control the order of the grey folders.
3. Need ability to use formula driven WBS's, for example Uniformat has a wonderful structure for level 1 (A), Level 2 (A10), and Level 3 (A1010). If I change the level 3 code, it should atomically code to all the upper levels, not only do we need this ability in Uniformat, but our owners also use this type of "level" approach in their structure..

I don't want to get ahead of the Dev team, but I have heard rumors (Derek) mention being able to change the column headers, but I built them into custom properties and inserted them into the template and item inserts. Each software as you know will be a bit different, but I am excited about changing the names in the column headers.

I would love a tour of your Ediphi setup to get a better understanding of how this all works. I am watching your video now, hoping to see some of that... will this be the subject of a future video on your channel?