Active Takeoff Reviews

by using active take-off myself and my team have saved a large amount of time in doing take offs for small to large projects which means we are able to send out for quoting at a faster rate than usual.

by using active take-off it takes away from miscounting any items on the plans and produces a table of quantities on the top of your plans, so when you're ready you can send it straight away to the client or wholesalers.

I cannot fault any feature on this programme.

it a great simple & easy programme to use and you can make it suit your needs.

The ease of importing plans from .pdf into the software is extremely intuitive. Active Takeoff allows a user to QUICKLY begin the process of plan takeoff. I am literally able to take a bid set from a prime contractor and return a price quote in half the time some of the more robust and expensive "industry standard" software takes.

The pricing for materials needs to be manually input . There is an import function but none of my material suppliers support the format Active Takeoff uses. It can take a few extra minutes to update prices or add a new device.

Price. Obviously you can spend a lot more on similar products. We only do countertops so it gets detailed enough for us and is all we need to spend to do the job.

Unable to read the font on the main plan sheet page below the pages. There is no way to search for keywords like adobe. Measurements don't show up on small items even after zooming. The report pages are't that easy to read.

Very affordable compared to similar software. I love that is allows me to color code plans. As a GC, the subcontractors love it when I have a color coded plan for them. This program eliminates my frantic searching for take-off calculation pages and makes it easier to pick up where I left off when changes are made. No more adding strings upon strings of dimensions! Plans allways say "Do not scale" when given to us to Bid, not sure how they expect us to price accurately when that is the case, but the scale configuration is perfect when you are not given an actual scale and still just need to get the job done.

As a software, It is getting there. there are still some kinks, and usability is not the greatest. It is not a software for someone who is computer illiterate. The estimating and take-offs in particular could use some tweaking. I never use it to generate full estimates because it is missing a lot of what would be needed for a G.C. (Perhaps for an individual trade would be more beneficial). What my money goes into it for is the quantity take-offs. the setting materials is a bit cumbersome and confusing but you can make it work, albeit sometimes incorrectly. But hey, there are many ways to skin a cat!

-easy learning curve
-lots of functionality
-detailed info and reports
-customization

-not enough tutorials
-limited explanation of functions, a lot you learn by trial by error

Ease of use, document / file organization and retention.

Cost can be steep for small business, light users.

its ease of use is , customization of scale feature

the initial cost is a lot per license, i feel that was you pay the large first up amount that multiple user licenses from there on should be more affordable

I like the ease of use. When I first started using the product, I couldn't believe how nicely all of the tools were mapped and how easy it was to figure out.

There are some minor functions that create a little annoyance every now and then, but nothing that I would say makes me not want to use the product.

It is so simple to use and gives you really close measurements. It really works with my estimating program,
Contractor Office.

I really don't have any problems to talk about.

Very easy learning path, accurate estimation, possibility to include prices and also it runs smooth on my pc

I have no negative comments, overall it met my expectations

Easy to learn, and does A LOT for the cost and time it takes to start using

I really want an Excel output report in simple spreadsheet format. Example of what I want:

Plan Sheet Color Data 1 Sf Volume
Floorplan Red Building Material One 100 600
Floorplan Blue Building Material One 200 800
Elevations Yellow Building Material One 250 900
Elevations Blue Building Material One 50 180

Shown below is the way Active T reports look now. I have to manually create new columns in Excel to show Color and Plan Sheet info IN EACH ROW. So I can sort my report by the heading of ANY COLUMN at will.

FLOORPLAN
Color Red
Building Material One 100 600
Color Blue
Building Material One 200 800

ELEVATIONS
Color Yellow
Building Material One 250 900
Color Blue
Building Material One 50 180

This is just one example of the current reports using extraneous rows to deliver information. Please give me one reporting option that has NO rows containing anything that is not pure data, with the sole exception of the headings to each column, which should be located in the first row. Things that are now titles to separate sections in the report should be converted to a column, and the title should be reported on each row. Like the Plan Sheet and Color info is showing in my example report. Please and Thank You!

I love how easy to operate the software is. I tried many programs before this one, but this one had the best bang for your buck, easiest to learn and most transparent to translate to the client.

The real only issue I have with the software is the routing the paths of the files. I've had to switch computers a few times, and the licensing can be a bit difficult to get transferred to a new computer, as is the transferring of the files. If I did not have technical support from my company, I wouldn't know how to do it myself.

Its quite intuitive making it easy to use from the get go but also has a level of depth to it once you become more established.

Its very good value for money when compared to other products on the market that are both harder to use and more expensive.

It would be nice to be able to change the currency used for estimations. This may be an option I have not learned yet.

This software works great for checking my sq ft takeoffs. If I get a different amount of sq ft with this software than my takeoff, then I know I have made a mistake on my takeoff. In the long run it could save thousands of dollars by giving an accurate sq ft of product.

I have liked everything about it. There is not a single item with this software that I like the least.

Very please with Active takeoff's ease of usability. No CAD background required to get very comfortable on the platform and make the takeoff process far more enjoyable.

User interface seems a bit dated, but does not affect performance. Also, it would be nice to email reports directly from the software to collegues.

It was the only one I could jump right in and start estimating.

The lack of framing extensions. Have to count joists off program. Just limited framing which is what I needed.

The ease of use, the more complicated uses that I don't need are easy to turn off to simplify everything.

The only issue I have is that it seems to hide my saved projects every time I update the software but that's probably easy to fix if I put my mind to it.

I called today for support. I spoke to the original person who designed the software in 2014. I found out I was one of the first 20 customers to purchase it in the United States.
I cannot tell you how happy I have been with this software and the customer service. Incredible.

Joe

Nothing it works great once you build your formulas.

We are a QS firm based in Western Australia. We have used pretty much all takeoff tools that are out there. Active Takeoff offers a clean measuring tool that leaves definable markups with a legend on each page that clearly indicates what is what. There are tools for amending the item of measure and most importantly the back-up service is excellent. Queries are answered in a language that we can understand and replies to queries come back in a timely manner. This, above anything else, is vital to us.

Nothing in particular. We are still familiarizing ourselves with the estimating side but nothing stands out that would prevent us commiting.

It is easy and fun to use. It makes my estimates extremely accurate. It has all the functionality that I need in my residential remodeling business. My designer wants to use it but I am having too much fun to give it up.

There are some features that I have asked for that do not exist yet. I have figured out how to work around them so nothing bad to say. My understanding is that it is a little less flexible and powerful than some far more expensive software packages but I am perfectly OK with that.

Super easy to setup, tracks all of my takeoff and sort info exactly how I need it in reports.

Sharing takeoff files from one machine to the next isn't available yet, but I hear that's in the next update. Other than this...The software is flawless.

The overall layout and design. Easy to use.

Wish they had curve points and auto counter

Easy to understand layout. Reasonable Price.

No Auto save so lose work unless you manually save all the time. Issues with memory, have to close other programs to make it function properly sometimes.

I liked the corners highlighting in red when you do the take off.

To re go in and modify take off. I don’t like how it generates the report

Very simple to use and figure out without any prior knowledge of this software. Speeds up the process of doing takeoffs with the extensions features.

Although this is very good at figuring out the estimates for the basic trades, if you're looking for more niche trades, those have not been added yet.