Making estimating easier

By Emma Peterson. 

For both contractors and distributors, material lists take up a lot of time. Learn how you can save time and close more deals using a material list generator!  

Estimating can be a very frustrating task. From sorting out material lists and labor requirements to calculating costs and presenting all of the information to clients, it can get time consuming. But it is a crucial step in both commercial and residential roofing jobs as it serves as a plan and guide for the entire project.  

Luckily, at the last International Roofing Expo, Westlake Royal Roofing Solutions was excited to launch the Unified Steel Material List Generator! This is a free, interactive tool that creates material lists for both Unified Steel Stone Coated Roofing and Westlake Roofing Components. By going to the Westlake site, contractors can now generate their material lists in three easy steps! 

1. Enter project details (like distributor, date, order number, address, etc.) 
2. Add the measurements (for things like hips, valleys, eaves, flashing, etc.) 
3. Choose the installation and material types (things like specific products or colors) 

In this episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Mitch Heitsch from Westlake showed this tool to Heidi J. Ellsworth firsthand. Once you enter all your information, you get either a PDF or a CSV file. Mitch explained the part both of these play, “If you're on the contractor side, you might typically stick with a PDF export. This is where you're going to pull this up and it's going to have just a simple PDF that's going to have all of your parts with the part numbers, and then the quantities associated with it.  The other option is to export it as a CSV file. So if you're an Excel nerd like I am, you're going to be able to pull this up, and then this is where it might get a little bit more helpful from the distribution side.” And the amount of time it took him to create those? About five minutes! 

By making the estimating process dramatically more efficient, Westlake has empowered contractors to make more sales and boost their businesses. Mitch explained, “Imagine what this does for your company to be able to have your estimator sit down and see that a sales rep in the field sent over a request for a roof report. Then he sits down for five minutes, boom, boom, boom. Here you go, you’ve got the roof report.”  

Read the transcript, Listen to the episode or Watch the recording for more about Westlake and Unified Steel’s material list generator!