For the project manager

Cost estimating for project managers

You are accountable for the number, but the estimator typed the lines. The estimate in Fidrel has a review step built for that split: you read what was submitted, send it back with a comment or approve it, and the approved estimate becomes the budget the project is tracked against.

Get started free View our plans

30 days free · No long-term contract.

The Fidrel cost estimate on a laptop, tablet and phone, with groups, line items and totals

Where an estimate review usually goes wrong

You review a copy, not the estimate

A spreadsheet in your inbox is a snapshot. By the time you reply, the estimator has changed three rows, and neither of you can show which ones.

A return without a reason starts an argument

Telling an estimator the number is wrong gives them nothing to fix. The reviewer has to say where and why, and that answer has to stay with the estimate.

Approving and budgeting blur together

Once you accept the number, someone must turn it into a budget. Weeks later nobody remembers what the budget was before the next revision moved it.

What is yours, and what is the estimator’s

Fidrel hands out roles and rights, not job titles. Typing lines and prices, and submitting or returning an estimate, belong to project and organization administrators alone; participants and guests read the estimate, and the right to edit it cannot be given to them. Approving is a separate step that needs the finance permissions to set the budget and to approve, which every project administrator holds and an administrator can also give to a participant. You can therefore be the person who approves without being able to change a single price, while the administrator who builds the estimate can approve it too.

Cost estimation

A draft baseline estimate with a note that it is not the approved project budget, and buttons to submit for review and approve as baseline estimate

What stays on the record

Three things are kept. The submitted line names who sent the estimate and when. The Estimate history lists every approval with the budget before and after and the reason typed at approval. And a locked estimate keeps its markup calculation, shown as Locked with the approval date, so the total you approved cannot drift. When a revision is approved you also choose whether approved changes stay on top of the new estimate or the new estimate already includes them, which decides what the current budget becomes.

The history of an approved estimate in Fidrel, with each approval, the budget before and after, who approved it and when

Your part of the estimate, in order

Step 1
Open the estimate that is In review
In the estimate list, an estimate waiting for you carries the status In review and the line Submitted for review with the date and the name of the person who sent it, plus any comment they left. Read it group by group; totals roll up from the lines, and the Markups and deductions panel lists each markup in the order it is calculated.
Step 2
Compare before you decide
If an earlier estimate exists, choose Compare with another estimate and switch on Differences only. Items found in only one of the two are listed apart, so you read what moved instead of the whole list.
Step 3
Return it with a comment, or approve it
Return to draft asks for a comment for the person who prepared the estimate, and the estimate goes back to Draft. Approve as baseline estimate opens a confirmation that shows Current budget today beside New current budget, with a box to tick before the button works.
Step 4
Read the budget it became
An approved estimate is locked, and each priced line is now a budget item. The Original budget stays fixed. Later changes arrive as change orders, budget adjustments or a new revision, each with a reason in the history.

What Fidrel checks, and what it leaves to you

Fidrel refuses approval when an item has no price, the estimate has no items, the total is negative, or the currency differs from the project budget. It does not tell you whether a price is reasonable, whether the scope is complete or whether the number matches the owner’s contract. Approval is a button with a confirmation, not an e-signature. A forecast estimate cannot be approved as the baseline, and only one approved baseline estimate exists at a time.

One project. One subscription. The entire platform included.

Your trial applies to your first own project and starts when that project is created. No card required. Afterwards, choose card or invoice to continue.

Get started free View our plans