Custom Materials and Categories — Tailoring the Database to Your Market
The built-in database is a starting point. The estimates that win are priced from your suppliers, your region, and your typical specification.
Start from 80+ built-in materials
EngEst Pro ships with over 80 common construction materials at real market prices, organised by category. Use them as-is, or make them yours.
What you can customise
- Add materials — name, specification, unit, price, category. Anything your projects use that is not in the base set.
- Edit prices — override any built-in price with your supplier’s quote.
- Custom categories — group materials the way your BOQ is structured.
- Custom units — bag, length, roll, set, lot, or whatever your suppliers quote in.
- Bulk adjust — apply a percentage change across a category when the market moves (e.g. +8% on all steel).
Why it matters
| Without customisation | With your database |
|---|---|
| Generic prices, manual overrides every estimate | Your prices applied automatically to every BOM |
| Re-entering the same custom items repeatedly | Entered once, reused across projects |
| Prices drift out of date silently | Bulk update keeps a whole category current in seconds |
Keeping it current
Feed winning supplier quotes back into the database after each project. Bulk-adjust volatile categories (steel, cement, fuel-linked items) monthly; leave stable categories for quarterly review.
Open the Material Database, add your suppliers’ materials and prices, set custom categories and units, and every calculator’s BOM is priced your way from then on.
Build your own material price list
Create a free EngEst Pro account — 5 projects a month, all 8 calculators, PDF BOQ export. No credit card required.
Create Free Account → Run your first estimate in under 10 minutes.