(The following interview appeared in Oser Communication Group’s “Electric Daily News” at the Electric West 2006 tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV on 3/1/06)
VISION INFOSOFT DEMOS SQL ESTIMATING SOFTWARE, FREE PRICING SERVICE TRIAL
Derrick Delliquadri, Marketing Director for Vision InfoSoft, explains why electrical contractors continue to seek out Vision InfoSoft for electrical software since 1993.
Electric Daily News (EDN):
What does Vision InfoSoft offer the electrical contractor industry?
Derrick Delliquadri (DD):
Vision InfoSoft’s primary focus is offering estimating, billing and pricing software for the electrical industry. Our EPIC™ pricing software allows electrical estimators to update their estimating software with local supplier, trade, and target pricing. We also offer a website design and management service for electrical contractors. We currently have over 10,000 contractor software customers and over 200 custom website customers.
EDN:
You recently released a new version of your estimating software. What sets Electrical Bid Manager SQL™ apart from other estimating software?
DD:
Well, Electrical Bid Manager SQL is our newest estimating software built on the Microsoft SQL database platform. We chose Microsoft’s SQL technology because it allowed us to build our estimating software system to handle an enormous amount of job data. This means handling thousands of jobs and multiple estimator support with no slow down whatsoever. In the past, our estimating software focused on single-user support. Our new Electrical Bid Manager SQL focuses on both single-user and multi-user network situations. We can confidently say that our estimating software is the most robust currently available.
EDN:
Wow, that sounds like quite an accomplishment. Are there any particular features in Electrical Bid Manager that you’d like to highlight?
DD:
Well yes, there are several. For one, it is tightly integrated with our EPIC pricing software and service. EPIC offers weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual pricing updates. EPIC can update almost all estimating software, but since EPIC is our product, we’ve spent extra time integrating it with Electrical Bid Manager.
Another feature of Electrical Bid Manager allows multiple estimators to be in the same job at the same time as well as providing expanded labor factoring; it has new timesaving takeoff modules, and thousands of timesaving material. It also comes preloaded with a huge database of material items, all with prices and labor units.
While the built-in database is loaded with all you’ll need for most jobs, you’ll always run into a job that requires specialty electrical materials. With EPIC software installed, you can click the EPIC toolbar button in Electrical Bid Manager and have quick access to item lookups. You can then import the item into Electrical Bid Manger for use in your estimate and future estimates. To my knowledge, no other estimating software offers this flexibility.
EDN:
You’ve mentioned your EPIC pricing software several times now. How does EPIC help keep pricing updated?
DD:
Electrical prices fluctuated a great deal in 2005 particularly because of the Hurricane Katrina, increasing oil prices and increases in foreign construction. Our EPIC pricing software subscription offers two things. One, as I mentioned before, you get pricing updates on a regular basis. Some contractors like updating their pricing once a week. Others would rather only get updates once or twice a month. Two, you get the EPIC pricing software tool that helps you integrate the new pricing into your estimating and billing software. It also allows you to quickly search through over 1.4 million items in the blink of an eye.
EDN:
In the blink of an eye?
DD:
That’s right! And to prove it, we are offering a free 90-day trial EPIC subscription to anyone that visits our booth 614 at the show. So, come on by!
EDN:
Do you have any new products on the horizon?
DD:
As a matter of fact, we just released a new residential estimating software program called Electrical Bid Manager Residential™. It can be used as a stand-alone or can be integrated into our Electrical Bid Manager Plus and Pro programs. It includes a unique “counting the holes” process that makes residential takeoffs incredibly quick.
We also just released a new wireless version of the PlanWheel™. The PlanWheel Wireless™ integrates with the latest versions of Electrical Bid Manager SQL Plus and Pro. The new PlanWheel Wireless is the only cordless plan measuring tool currently available. It allows you to measure plans from up to 25 feet away from your computer. The PlanWheel Wireless includes rechargeable batteries and USB charging cradle. Come by the booth to see it in action!
We make it a point to listen to our customers. Combining our customers’ ideas with our years of experience in the industry, we are constantly continuing to develop our Electrical Bid Manager family of software. Electrical Bid Manager looks to continue its strong pedigree of easy to use, yet powerful, estimating software.
EDN:
Vision InfoSoft is a successful software company. To what do you attribute your success?
DD:
Beyond some of the things I just mentioned, we also have an incredible team of employees that keep our customers happy with new software updates and unbeatable customer service and support. We wouldn’t be where we are today without our dedicated employees. However, our customers are the primary reason for our success. Frankly, if they didn’t buy our software, we wouldn’t be able to continue creating industry leading software, add-ons and improvements the way we do. I’d like to thank all our Vision InfoSoft customers for continuing to support us while we support them.
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