Entering and Managing Quantities

This article covers every place you enter or change a quantity in Stimaro — when creating an item, when editing one later, and when Takeoff measurements fill quantities in automatically — and how those changes flow through to unit cost and the bid.

Takeoff Qty vs. Bid Qty, briefly

Items carry two quantity fields: Takeoff Qty and Bid Qty. They start equal when you create an item but can be changed independently. For what each one means and when you'd set them differently, see Takeoff quantity vs. bid quantity. This article focuses on the mechanics.

Entering a quantity when you create an item

When you create an item from the Items tab, the New Item dialog has a single Quantity field. At creation there's just one number — you haven't measured anything yet — so it seeds both Takeoff Qty and Bid Qty equally. Enter the quantity you expect to bid (from the owner's bid form or your best estimate). Fill in U/M before saving, since it's harder to change once the item is linked to a bid row. Click Create Item.

If you instead add a new item from the Bid tab using Add Item when no unlinked item sheets exist to link, you'll get a dialog with Item #, Description, U/M, and Bid Qty — enter the quantity in Bid Qty and click Create Item.

Editing an item's quantities later

Quantities are editable any time on the item header, which appears at the top of the right panel when you select an item on the Items tab. Click the header to open it for editing. You'll see separate fields:

• Takeoff Qty — the measured or estimated quantity that drives the item's unit cost
• Bid Qty — the quantity that flows to the bid sheet and drives the row's total
• U/M and Cost Code — editable here too

Edit what you need and click Save. Changing Takeoff Qty immediately recalculates the item's unit cost; changing Bid Qty syncs to the bid sheet. Cancel closes without saving.

Editing Bid Qty directly on the bid sheet

You can also change Bid Qty without leaving the Bid tab. In the bid sheet grid, double-click the Bid Qty cell (or press F2), type the new value, and press Enter. The row's total recalculates immediately, and the item's Bid Qty updates to match — the two stay in sync. Editing Bid Qty here does not change Takeoff Qty or unit cost; the two quantities are independent.

How Takeoff measurements fill quantities in

When you place a measurement mark on the Takeoff tab and apply it to an item, the measured quantity is written into the item automatically.

• From a measurement mark: after describing the mark, use Apply to estimate → New item (then Create & apply) or Existing item (then Apply now). The measured quantity becomes the item's Takeoff Qty, replacing any hand-entered value.
• From an imported bid form: applying a parsed row writes the bid form's quantity directly into the bid row as Bid Qty.

After either, you can still open the item header and adjust Takeoff Qty and Bid Qty by hand.

How quantity changes flow through the estimate

Quantities connect to costs at two levels:

On the item (unit cost): unit cost = total resource cost ÷ Takeoff Qty. The total resource cost doesn't change when you change Takeoff Qty — only the per-unit result does. So raising Takeoff Qty lowers unit cost, and lowering it raises unit cost, for the same set of resources.

On the bid (total bid): a row's total = Bid Qty × Bid Unit. The Bid Unit normally mirrors the item's unit cost (unless you've entered a manual override), so changing Bid Qty recalculates the row total and the bid's overall total and markup immediately. And if you change Takeoff Qty on a linked item, the linked bid row's unit cost and total update too — because the item's unit cost changed and the bid row pulls from it.

Resource quantities are separate

The Qty on an individual resource row (inside the item detail grid) is different from the item-level Takeoff Qty and Bid Qty. Resource quantities control how many units of each labor class, equipment type, or material the work needs. Click a resource Qty cell and type a new value — the line cost recalculates (Qty × Factor × Rate) and the item total rolls up automatically. See Adding resources to an item for more.