Creating restoration estimates on site in under 30 minutes
Scoping & Estimating
5 min read
Challenge
Manual sketching and time-consuming estimating workflows
Warren Restoration serves customers dealing with water damage, fire damage, smoke damage, storm damage, and mold remediation. The company operates with a mitigation team of six people and a repair team of two people, while maintaining high standards and investing time, energy, and money into training.
Before using magicplan, Warren Restoration relied on what Ian refers to as “the industry standard software.” When visiting a home or business, the team had to sketch structures by hand on graph paper, add handwritten notes and measurements, and then return to the office to input everything into the software.
This process was lengthy and inefficient. The software also required working with more than 27,000 line items for estimates, which needed to be memorized to use the program efficiently.
Solution
Sketching structures and building estimates directly on site
Warren Restoration decided to replace the industry standard software with magicplan. Ian explains that switching was easy due to the limitations of the previous tool.
Using magicplan, Ian can sketch an average house of around 2,000 square feet in about 20 minutes and spend another ten minutes creating an estimate. This replaces a process that previously took two to three hours and required returning to the office to complete the work.
Another key benefit is the ability to create a fully customized price list. Instead of working with more than 27,000 line items, Ian created about 220 customized line items that match how Warren Restoration works, including different measurement methods and partial-height functionality for tasks such as drywall flood cuts.
Results
Faster estimates and smoother handoff to the office
magicplan also enables Ian to transmit sketches and estimates to the office while still in the field.
This allows the administrative staff to immediately begin working the information through the company’s pipeline.
Ian explains that this workflow is why Warren Restoration now uses magicplan exclusively.
“That’s why we use magicplan exclusively now.”
Outlook
Recommending magicplan to other restoration companies
Ian says he would recommend magicplan to other restoration businesses, particularly those that are not required to use standard vendor software programs.
“I definitely would, hands down. If they are not on a vendor program that requires use of the standard type of software, I would certainly recommend switching over to magicplan right away.”
When asked to finish the sentence “magicplan is…”, Ian’s response was simple.
“…fantabulous!”
