08.01 How to Use Bid Areas to Separate Takeoff Quantities

Bid Areas allow you to break out your takeoff quantity in a logical manner such as by Floor, Building, Phase, etc.

Why would you want to use Bid Areas?

• Unless you a taking off a small, single unit dwelling, you probably want to be able to report your takeoff results by building, floor, or broken out in some other way. Think about a high-rise building. It is important to know how much of each building object (Takeoff Item) is located on each floor - especially for ordering materials and scheduling labor. With Bid Areas, you know that there is "X" amount (Result) of "Y" (Takeoff Item) on Floors, 1, 2, 3, etc. 
• If you are going to use Typical Areas (see Related Articles), you start with Bid Area because you tell the program that a Typical Area exists "X" times in a Bid Area and the program multiplies your takeoff quantities for you, automatically. (See Related Articles for information on Multi-Condition and Typical Takeoff.)
• If you are using your takeoff quantities to create an Estimate or Quotation and ultimately managing your project on-site, you'll need to know how much material to deliver to a particular 'area' of your project.

In the next few articles, we show you how to set up Bid Areas, assign takeoff to Bid Areas, and show and hide takeoff based on the Bid Area to which it is assigned.

You can configure up to three "levels" or "tiers" of Bid Areas. For example, on a large project where you are taking off multiple buildings, you may have "Tower A" and "Tower B" as your top-level Bid Areas. Below these, you may have Bid Areas for "Floors 1 - 20" (or however many floors there are), and under those Floors, you may have Rooms or Wings or Suites that you want to break out even further. So, when you were reviewing your Bid Areas, you could have one named "Tower A - Floor 4 - Section 3a" - this provides a level of granularity that helps you properly allocate takeoff (and eventually costs and materials) to the appropriate place at the job site.

Showing (Turning On) a Hidden Layer to Draw Takeoff

What are Page Areas