The situation
Where they started.
The company had years of project history and no way to use it. Costing sheets, work orders and estimating files lived in individual spreadsheets, so nobody could quickly say what an epoxy job really costs per square foot, which technologies are most profitable, how estimates compared with actuals, or whether a new number was too low, too high or missing a cost line. The brief was explicit: not another calculator, an estimation support system that combines the company's costing logic with its own performance history.
What FlatClaw does
What was built.
- Historical costing sheets and work orders are normalized into a governed knowledge base: technology, square footage, price per square foot, labor hours, material, transport, equipment, consumables, per diem, estimated versus actual value, profitability, crew size, duration, change orders.
- Benchmarks by technology and project-size band: epoxy coatings, urethane cement, polished concrete, self-leveling systems, sealers, with the realistic ranges for every cost category.
- A new estimate is calculated on the company's own cost logic, then compared with the closest historical jobs and their outcomes, and the gaps are flagged before an estimation manager approves it.
- The whole loop runs from inside the CRM the sales team already uses, and completed jobs feed their actuals back into the benchmarks.
Results
What changed.
- Estimates grounded in what the company's own jobs actually cost, by technology.
- Too-low, too-high and missing-cost estimates caught before they leave the building.
- Profitability visible by technology and market segment for the first time.
- Spreadsheet dependence replaced with a knowledge base that improves with every job.