Do you make a living estimating? If you do, chances are that you rely on your paper grid to record your counts. Up to now plain old paper has done the job and frankly counting on the computer is not much more efficient. Theres something about handling the plans with your hands, marking with one hand while the other increases the tally counter. Unfortunately your co-worker approaches and as you begin to mark the last item they engage in conversation. After they leave doubt begins to creep in, did I count this item? Just your luck you were counting the most expensive item and accuracy is of the essence. Its time to recount, but not to worry the new mTally for iPad will take care of this and much more. By simply taping on screen the application will highlight and count, and if you make a mistake simply tap the highlight and delete, try that with paper. In this brief introduction mTally is already improving your accuracy and speed making you more efficient, but what else can our app do for you?
If your estimating for the construction industry theres no doubt you have dealt with giant sets of plans or tiny computer print outs. While the small printouts are more manageable to work with the small symbol can be quite difficult to read. And in the other hand the large prints make the symbols more legible, but become a burden to lug around and can be costly if you need to pay for duplicates. Worst of all when your done with these sets of plans they sit in a corner of your office taking up space. Once again mTally can come to the rescue, taking advantage of the technology employed by the iPad we can have the comfort of the small page size with the clarity of the large pages. Simply pinch or expand your fingers over the drawing and size the page to your desired resolution. With multitouch support you can select a shape with your left hand and tap the shape counts with the right. If you need to see more of the drawing simply use two fingers and move the drawing in the direction you need, and continue taping your counts.
So far mTally is going to improve your speed, accuracy, reduce waste and save you money. Is there something else that mTally could do for you? The answer is yes, it can facilitate the sharing of these counts. Some estimators need to send their counts to vendors others might need to import their numbers into an estimating application. The good news is that mTally can help in both cases by using the cloud with services like iCloud or Dropbox, email and iTunes. mTally will export your counts as a comma delimited file (CSV), allowing for easy import from most estimating applications.
mTally is your mission control for managing takeoffs of any size. Our application can hold thousands of projects with their individual counts all a tap away. Improve accuracy and speed, reduce waist, save money, and simplify sharing all on the palm of your hands.
Theres one more thing, many times when creating your takeoffs is important to know dimensions, some estimators need to track cable lengths or conduits. Well mTally can help you too. Aside from keeping track of individual items, mTally can keep track of distances. No longer will you need to print that file and look for your scale, simply draw a line of a known area like a doorway and enter the real world length. Now with a scale in place you can begin to track distances on your drawings and because the measurements behave like the shape counter you can accumulate the distances for particular items. Making the estimation of conduit or cables a trivial endeavor. Now whether on the road or at the office the completion of your takeoff is just a few taps away.