Group Costs and Totals

What linking is for

Linking answers "what is this?", not "what does it cost?". ZeroCount records the code and description against the group, carries them into the export, and lets you see at a glance which groups still have neither. The arithmetic — rates, on-costs, labour, the priced bill — happens in the estimating side of Ensign.Software once the quantities leave the app.

That is worth stating plainly, because it sets expectations for the rest of this article. ZeroCount does not price your takeoff. No screen in the app multiplies a quantity by a rate, and no cost figure appears anywhere against a marker group.

The linked strip in Review mode

Review mode is where linking is easiest to check, because the sidebar becomes a full-width panel and each group row gains a strip on the right showing its item.

The Remove button's tooltip names the source, so you can tell what kind of link a group carries without opening anything: Remove linked DB item, Remove linked CC item, Remove linked assembly or Remove linked custom item. Clicking it unlinks the group straight away, with no confirmation. Clicking Link opens the Database Items window.

An assembly with no description of its own falls back to reading Assembly in the description slot.

The quantities on a group row

Every group row carries its own figure in the third column, and this is the only number ZeroCount computes for a group:

Lengths and areas already have the drawing's scale and calibration applied. In Zones view the figures are per zone, with lengths and areas clipped at the zone boundary.

There is no cost panel

Earlier builds carried a Totals panel and a per-group cost table. Neither is shown in the current app, so if you are looking for a running total in the sidebar, it does not exist. What you have instead is:

• the per-group figures described above;
• the Service totals block in the Excel workbook, when the drawing has more than one Marker Service;
• the Total tab in Review mode, which lists every group across every drawing with its quantity and code.

For anything priced, export the quantities and take them into the estimating software.

Custom Items — the one place with computed figures

Custom items are the exception, and it is worth understanding what the numbers on them do and do not mean. When your company creates a custom item under Templates Custom Items, the dialog computes three fields:

These are unit rates for one of the item. Nothing in ZeroCount multiplies them by the count or length of a group linked to that item. Two of them, Material Total and Total Lab Cost, are visible as columns in the Custom view of the Database Items window, which makes it easy to confirm you have picked the right rate before you link.

Hide linked in the cross-drawing summary

The cross-drawing Total tab in Review mode has a dashed Hide linked toggle with a count beside it. The count is how many groups across the whole project currently carry a link. Switch the toggle on and every one of those rows disappears, leaving only the groups still needing an item.

This is the fastest end-of-job check there is: turn it on, and anything still listed is unpriced. Each remaining row has its own Link button, so you can clear the list without opening a single drawing.

See The cross-drawing summary for the rest of that table.

Code and Description in the Excel export

Where a link does real work is the workbook. Both the per-drawing sheets and the Totals sheet carry a Code and a Description column, filled from the group's linked item:

Unlinked groups export with both cells blank. The workbook records no prices at all — Code and Description are the whole of what a link contributes.

See Understanding the workbook for the full column list.

Marker Services and subtotals

Marker Services group your marker groups into named sections such as Cold Water or Heating. They do not carry prices either, but they do give the workbook its only subtotal block:

• Where a drawing has more than one Service, its sheet ends with a Service totals block listing each service with its group count, total count, total length and total area.
• Rows on the sheet are ordered by Service, with anything unassigned last under Ungrouped.
• The section header in the sidebar shows no subtotal of its own.

See Marker Services for setting them up.

Getting the quantities priced

1. 1

   Link every group you want priced. Use Hide linked on the Total tab to find the stragglers.

2. 2

   Name every group, because the label becomes the Takeoff Description column.

3. 3

   Export with Export Quantities (.xlsx) and check the Code and Description columns are filled where you expect.

4. 4

   Hand the workbook to whoever prices the job. The rates live in the estimating software, not here.

Next steps

• The cross-drawing summary — check and fix every drawing's links from one table.
• Preparing a project for export — the full pre-export sweep.
• Exporting to Excel — produce the quantities workbook.
• Understanding the workbook — every column, including Code and Description.