Custom Calc4You integration
Calc4You is estimating software from Software 4You in Voorburg, for construction, infrastructure, building services and property maintenance, with element-based, traditional and multi-year estimates. After the estimate, the re-keying often begins: items in the working budget, materials in purchasing, hours in the planning and amounts in the quote or the ERP. Appfront builds the integration between Calc4You and those systems, so an estimate is made once and every item, with its quantities and amounts, ends up in the right place.
What is a Calc4You integration?
A Calc4You integration takes an estimate from Calc4You and carries it over into the software you continue working in. Calc4You is a comprehensive estimating package for creating element-based, traditional and multi-year estimates, for construction, infrastructure, building services and long-term property maintenance. Software 4You also supplies iCalc4You, Raw4You for RAW specifications and CalcViewer4You, which can display estimates from many other packages. The integration reads in the estimate, places each item with its quantity, unit, price and hours in the right place in your working budget, purchasing or planning, and keeps the reference to the estimate.
Without an integration, the estimate gets re-keyed. The estimating tool produces a printout or an export, the works planner retypes the items into the working budget, the buyer looks up the materials and the scheduler adds up the hours. If a new version of the estimate follows a conversation with the client, someone has to check line by line what has changed. For a maintenance company with multi-year estimates for dozens of complexes, that means even more lines.
We build custom solutions because every company has its own structure. One contractor works with an elements-based estimate, another with a traditional layout or with its own cost categories. Which Calc4You products you use, what output they produce and which systems need to receive the estimate all determine how the integration is built. Software 4You also does custom work itself for data transfer between packages and does not publish public API documentation. What output your environment produces is something we look at in the first step, together with you and Software 4You.
No retyping
Estimate imported instantly.
Right item
In your own structure.
Change visible
Versions compared.
How we build your Calc4You integration
We start with your estimates and your systems: which Calc4You products you use, what kinds of estimates you make, what form they come out in and where they need to go afterwards. Then we build the first integration, usually estimate to working budget, because that is where most of the retyping happens. Your works planners use it on a few projects. Purchasing, scheduling and version comparison follow if that goes well. After that, we maintain the integration whenever Calc4You or your other systems change.
Type, format and destination.
The first integration.
Expansion.
Go-live, monitoring, and maintenance when things change.
What a Calc4You integration actually does
The components below appear in almost every Calc4You integration. Which ones you need depends on your type of work and your systems.
Import
Estimate with items and prices.
Mapping
Calc4You item to your item.
Working budget
Budget per item.
Purchasing
Materials per project.
Versions
What has changed.
Multi-year
Maintenance to scheduling.
Who we build a Calc4You integration for
The integration is intended for companies that regularly estimate with Calc4You and then need the estimate in several systems. The larger the estimates and the more often they change, the more it pays off.
Contractors
Estimate to working budget.
Installers
Materials to purchasing.
Infrastructure companies
Estimate to execution.
Maintenance companies
Multi-year to scheduling.
Technology and integrations
This page is about importing estimates from Calc4You. For the budget during execution, see our page on working budget software for construction; for specifications following the STABU system, our page on the STABU integration; for building models, our page on the IFC integration; and if you want your own estimating package, take a look at our page on estimating software. You can read about our approach at building custom software.
Why Appfront for your Calc4You integration?
An estimate that is retyped three times, a new version whose change never made it into the working budget, or a buyer working with different quantities than the estimator all cost a construction company time and margin. That is what we build on: the estimate made once, every item in the right place, and every change visible to whoever needs it.
Faster
From estimate to execution.
One version
Everyone works from the same.
No missed changes
Versions compared.
Security and privacy for a Calc4You integration
Estimates and unit prices are confidential, especially in a tender. The integration only gives access to the people working on the project, and every imported estimate is logged with time, version and user. Prices only go to the systems that need them.
The integration runs in a European data centre, with encrypted connections and storage and daily backups. If Calc4You runs locally on your own computers, we will work with you or your IT administrator to see how the integration can deliver the estimates securely.
Frequently asked questions about a Calc4You integration
Questions that estimators, work planners and owners of construction and installation companies ask before getting started.
A link between the Calc4You estimating software and your own systems, such as job budgeting, purchasing, planning, quoting or ERP. The estimate is imported and every item lands in the right place with its quantities and amounts, without retyping.
Estimating software from Software 4You in Voorburg for construction, infrastructure, installation engineering and property maintenance. It can be used to create element-based, traditional and multi-year estimates. Software 4You also supplies iCalc4You, Raw4You and CalcViewer4You.
Software 4You does not publish public API documentation and itself does custom work for data transfer between packages. In the first step, together with you and Software 4You, we look at what output your environment provides and under what conditions.
Often, yes. CalcViewer4You already displays estimates from Ibis, Cuf, Raw, Kraan KPD, AEC and Stabu, among others. Whether an estimate from another package can also be imported into your own systems depends on the file. We assess that using a few real estimates.
Yes. A new version is placed alongside the previous one, and for each item you can see what has been added, removed or changed. The work planner decides what changes in the job budget.
Yes. The items per year and per complex go to your maintenance planning or management system, so that planning and the estimate use the same figures.
For companies that regularly need large estimates in multiple systems, or that produce many versions per project. With just a few small estimates a month, retyping is often faster than an integration.
Your Calc4You estimates straight into your other systems?
Tell us what kind of estimates you make and where they need to go next. We will show how an integration can take over the retyping.