Craftsman Costbooks

How to use Craftsman Costbooks in ContractorTools

Dan Fellman avatar
Written by Dan Fellman
Updated over a week ago

Craftsman Costbooks are lists of construction cost items that you can copy from to create estimates in ContractorTools. The cost data in Craftsman Costbooks is provided by the Craftsman book company and is available as an optional additional subscription service in ContractorTools.

You can view the contents of the Craftsman Costbook data before deciding to subscribe to them. Tap "Craftsman Costbooks" in the Home screen to view the list of Craftsman Costbooks:

Tap on one of the costbooks in the list to read a description, and browse data in that costbook:

Tap Browse Items to browse the items in the costbook:

Note: To copy items from Craftsman Costbooks, go into the estimate in a job and tap "+" to add an estimate item. Then, in the New Item screen, tap "From a Costbook":

Cost Modification Factors

Back on the Craftsman Costbooks screen...
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... you will notice the "Cost Modification Factors" option. Tap it to open the Cost Modification Factors screen:

The Cost Modification Factors screen allows you automatically adjust the costs in the Craftsman Costbooks up or down by a specified percent as cost items are copied into jobs.

  • A cost modification factor of 1 means that costs will not be modified (muliplied by 1).

  • A cost modification factor of less than 1 (but greater than zero) means that costs will be decreased (multiplied by that amount). For example, a cost modification factor of .97 means that costs will be reduced by 3%.

  • A cost modification factor greater than 1 means that costs will be increased (multiplied by that amount). For example, a cost modification factor of 1.03 means that costs will be increased by 3%.

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