Key Outcomes with Sage Estimating & eTakeoff

Company overview: In less than a decade, Coastal Pacific Landscape Management has grown from a one-man operation into a flourishing enterprise with 50 employees and 20 vehicles serving all of San Diego County. The commercial landscape contractor goes beyond typical installation and maintenance services, providing soil science expertise, promoting sustainable practices and natural pest control, and advocating for sophisticated water conservation and management techniques.

Coastal Pacific Landscape Management’s CEO, Tim Saunders, recognized that to grow his business he’d need to work more on the business than in the business, and invested in the technology needed to allow him to do just that. Sage Estimating combined with eTakeoff Dimension and eTakeoff Bridge are the technology tools at the root of the company’s smooth and successful growth.

“We generated $4 million in revenue last year,” says Saunders. “We could not have hit that volume without the efficiencies Sage Estimating and the eTakeoff solutions bring.”

Inefficiencies at the root of the problem

Like many growing contractors, Coastal Pacific Landscape Management relied on spreadsheets for estimating. “I spent almost all my time producing estimates,” recalls Saunders. “Every change or minor adjustment meant a lot of manipulation and duplicate data entry.”

Saunders recognized that it was too easy to make undetectable errors that could significantly affect a project’s profitability. “I knew that it was not a scalable method. I needed sophisticated estimating tools so that I could focus on growing the business.”

Choosing a perennial winner

A colleague recommended Sage Estimating, eTakeoff Dimension, and eTakeoff Bridge to Saunders and he implemented the trio nearly three years ago. Sage Estimating is the most widely used estimating software solution in the United States, eTakeoff Dimension is a complete electronic viewer and takeoff solution, and eTakeoff Bridge is an innovative software application that creates a link between eTakeoff Dimension and Sage Estimating. “I worked with a local business partner who has proven invaluable,” he says. “They’ve really helped us optimize the software and use it to improve our estimating process.”

Estimate prep time goes from one week to one day

Sage Estimating, in combination with the eTakeoff applications have completely transformed the way Coastal Pacific Landscape Management handles its estimating tasks.

“Because the old system was so complicated, required so much industry knowledge, and had such a high potential for errors, I was the only one I trusted to do our estimating,” explains Saunders. “But now, using Sage Estimating and eTakeoff, I can hire a college intern to complete our estimates. It’s now a consistent, manageable process. Before, it would take me a full week to generate a $400,000 estimate, and now an intern can knock out the same estimate in just one day.”

The process is intuitive and straightforward. After the project bidding files are brought into eTakeoff Dimension and the takeoff is complete, eTakeoff Bridge translates the file into Sage Estimating, using the assemblies and pricing Coastal Pacific Landscape Management has configured.

An invaluable part of the business

“This is powerful, complex software,” concludes Saunders. “I knew going into it that it wasn’t plug-and-play; there is considerable setup and configuration required to build it out and get your company-specific rates and tasks in the applications. But once it’s configured, it becomes an invaluable part of the business. For contractors that want to grow and scale their businesses intelligently and reliably, I’d definitely recommend Sage Estimating.”