The case for HCSS Heavybid: My 30+ year journey!

"What's it going to take to get Heavybid into R.E. Monks?" John Davis, VP at HCSS, asked me in a phone call just a month or so after I had left Sundt and started as chief estimator for R.E. Monks Construction in Arizona.

That conversation happened in the summer of 1997 and to understand the background, we need to go back to 1992 when Ken Brunker had been promoted to VP over the estimating group at Sundt Corp. Ken's predecessor had purchased several seats of Hard Dollar with a money back guarantee if the company was unable to adopt it within a year. There was no plan in place to evaluate the software, so before returning the software, Ken assigned myself and Stoney Moore to try using the software and provide him with feedback about the potential for broader implementation.

Sundt Corp's heavy group was headquartered in Tucson at the time. Stoney and I were assigned to the Phoenix office because of our residence. I had learned to estimate on columnar pads and 10 key adding machines, and Stoney had worked for Tanner Companies who had an in house network system and he had also used BidPro. The company was currently using a Quattro Pro Spreadsheet system that was developed in house. We attended Hard Dollar's training and we started to use the software for real bidding. We only landed one project with Hard Dollar, Bell Road and I-17 Interchange for ADOT, and our experience with the product was not positive at all.

Stoney suggested that we try BidPro and so we did. It was like night and day, BidPro was easy to use and hard to make mistakes with. But it wasn't robust enough for the type of projects that Sundt was bidding, and Scott Rolf, the developer, was working for another contractor at the time. So the search was on for a suitable software, or maybe a developer to build our own in-house system. One day, someone saw a magazine advertisement for this software company out of Texas called HCSS and they had a product called Heavybid. So we called them.

We talked to John Davis and asked about a demonstration of the software, John said he just happened to be in Phoenix but was leaving that evening. He offered to give us a quick demo in his hotel room at the airport before he left and we rushed right over. At first glance the system looked like something that might work for us. The open WYSIWYG style of their interface was attractive and the overall workflow was similar to our manual spreadsheet system, but faster and easier to change on the fly. We were currently embroiled in a dispute with Hard Dollar over a refund, because they continued to promise that updates were coming and recommending that we should wait. When we asked John about the cost of Heavybid, he said they would give us four seats free for a year so we could decide if it was going to work. After the year, we would be able to access the estimates, but not produce any new ones unless we purchased the license. All data was local and no input from HCSS was needed, it was a no lose situation.

Since Hard Dollar was born in Arizona, the competition between them and HCSS was intense. After just a short period, we had purchased Heavybid and were moving on with implementation across the entire estimating group. But Hard Dollar didn't give up easily, they promoted having a Windows version versus HCSS still being a DOS system.

By 1995, HCSS was preparing to release their own Windows version of Heavybid, but Microsoft threw them a curveball with Window's 95 and a brand new operating system architecture. This set Heavybid back several month while they edited their code and tested the new product. By 1996, Heavybid windows was released and there were a few hiccups, but overall it was as solid as the DOS version. I missed having the batch report functionality, but Mike Rydin politely told me that we just have to give up some things for a while in order to move forward.

When I left Sundt in 1997 and joined R.E. Monks, I learned that Monks had purchased Hard Dollar and my predecessor had struggled to use it effectively. They also had BidPro, but I promised them I would give Hard Dollar another try. After just a couple of estimates, and flashbacks of frustration, I put Hard Dollar in the closet and started using BidPro. That's when the call from John Davis came. Knowing the Monks family had a budget rash over the Hard Dollar purchase, I told John that if he gave me a free license for a year just as he had done at Sundt, that I was confident I could sell my new employer on their product. "Done!" he said.

For the next 15 years, we used Heavybid extensively, trained many people to use it, and even converted some other contractors. With my later companies, we implemented or upgraded Heavybid and it became the gold standard by which we controlled a lot of internal cost factors such as equipment use rates, crew structures, and standard cost codes. Ultimately, I have over 30 years of experience with HCSS and Heavybid. I've used it in conjunction with five different accounting systems and never had any serious issues once the initial export was formatted. The technical support at HCSS is extraordinary and they will not stop until they've resolved your issue.

Customer support was and still is their primary business relations tool. In the early days, if I called at 2 in the morning because of a technical issue on a bid we were closing, I always got an answer on the second or third ring. Sometimes, it was even Mike Rydin himself that woke up to answer the call. That dedication to their customers built their reputation and continues to this day.

Just as the DOS to Windows transition was a major undertaking for them, they are currently in development of the next generation of Heavybid which will take advantage of the latest technologies while still earning the confidence of it's users. If your not already a Heavybid user, I'd strongly encourage you to check them out at www.hcss.com

If you would like help to set up or tune up your estimating workflow, please reach out to me for a conversation about evaluating, adopting, tuning, or learning Heavybid and the workflow around the software that makes it an integral part of growth and success. The learning curve is not steep and the benefits offer exponential return on investment.

Lastly, in fairness to Hard Dollar and it's successors, this post is not an evaluation of any system and I don't offer any recommendations for any particular product. I've had a good experience with HCSS over the decades and I recommend that you check out their products along with any relevant competitors so you can make an informed decision that fits with your business. I can help with those evaluations if beneficial. I am not sponsored by HCSS or any other software developer.

Bill Kelton