Value engineering is where you price the parts of the job that could be done another way — a cheaper spec to take cost out, or an upgrade to put it back in — without disturbing the estimate underneath. You set up a "Value Engineering Item" for the thing being reconsidered, give it as many "Alternates" as you want to compare, and price each alternate against the cost codes it affects.
Nothing moves until you apply one. Until then every alternate sits beside the estimate as it stands, with what it would cost and what it would save, so you can put the whole set in front of an owner and apply whichever they pick.
To value engineer an estimate follow these steps.
Navigate to the desired estimate and select the "VE / Alternates" tab. Each row is one item, showing the cost codes it covers, the alternate currently driving the budget under "Selected Alternate", and what that alternate is worth under "Change". The "Total" row at the bottom is what every applied alternate on the estimate comes to together.
Press the "Add Value Engineering Item" button in the upper right and type a "Name". Name the item after the thing being reconsidered rather than after the saving — "Roof Membrane", "Carpet", "Exterior Skin" — because the same item will hold every way of pricing it.
Press "Select cost codes", choose the category the codes sit in, and tick every cost code this item covers. Press the button at the bottom of the list to attach them; it counts what you have ticked, so it reads "Add 2 cost codes".
Check the codes listed under the selector, then press "Add Value Engineering Item" at the bottom of the panel. Zebel creates the item and opens its own page.
The item opens with one column, "None" — the estimate as it stands, with nothing applied — and a placeholder where its alternates will go. Press "Add Alternate".
Type a "Name", pick a "Color" and write a "Description", then press "Add Alternate". The description is what the team reads back months later, so say what the spec change actually is and what it costs you, not just what it is called.
Price the alternate against each of the item's cost codes. Press the box in the alternate's column on the code's row, type the swing, and press "Save Formula". A negative figure takes cost out and a positive figure adds it. The figure beside each box is what that code costs under this alternate, so a row reads across as a comparison.
NOTE, a box takes a formula as well as a plain figure, and the estimate's design fields can be used in it. Write the rate first — "-2.50 * Building Exterior SF" prices a saving of $2.50 for every square foot of building exterior, and it still means that after the building changes size.
Read the item's "Summary" once the boxes are filled in. "Total" is what the item's cost codes come to under each alternate, "Change" is what that alternate moves the estimate by, and "% Change" is the same figure against the "None" baseline.
NOTE, the "Change" is usually larger than the boxes add up to. The boxes are the raw swing on the cost code; the "Change" is what that does to the estimate once the markups those codes carry are included. Here -$18,500.00 and -$4,200.00 of swing lands as a "Change" of -$24,516.00, because these codes carry an 8% "General Conditions Markup".
Press "Add" and then "Add Alternate" to put another option beside the first. Each alternate is another column, priced against the same cost codes, so the comparison stays on one screen. "Interior Finishes" on this estimate holds three of them — "Builder grade" at -$29,700.00, "Strip the casework" at -$16,826.40, and "As drawn", which is priced at nothing so the log shows what was given up against it.
NOTE, "Add" also offers "Add Cost Codes", which attaches more codes to the item after it has been created. Every alternate gets a box on the new row, and the ones you leave empty swing nothing.
Press "Apply" under the alternate you want in the budget. The button turns green and reads "Applied", and the column is tinted to match.
NOTE, one alternate per item is applied at a time — applying a second replaces the first. Press "Apply Nothing" under the "None" column to take the item back to the estimate as it stands.
Select the "VE / Alternates" tab again to see the item in the list. "Selected Alternate" names what is applied and is itself a dropdown, so an alternate can be applied from here without opening the item, and each option carries what it would move the budget by. "Change" is what the applied alternate is worth, and the "Total" row adds up every item on the estimate.
Select the "Budget & Inputs" tab to see where it lands. The cost codes the item covers now read their post-alternate totals, and the "Value Engineering Item" column names the item driving each one.
To set items up in advance, press the "gear" icon in the left sidebar to open your company settings, select "Record Templates" under "Configuration", open the template and select its "VE / Alternates" tab. Items, their cost codes and their alternates are built here the same way, and every estimate created from that template afterwards starts with them.
NOTE, a template has no prices to move, so there is no Apply button on it and the column that names what is applied on an estimate is headed "Alternates" here, listing everything the item holds. Estimates created from the template start with every item on the "None" baseline, and the alternates are applied on the estimate.
NOTE, an alternate does not have to be a saving. Pricing an upgrade alongside a descope is what lets you put both directions in front of an owner from the same item, and an alternate that adds cost shows its "Change" as a positive figure.
NOTE, a cost code can be covered by more than one value engineering item, and it takes the swing of each applied alternate. Attaching a code to an item moves no money on its own — what it carries is set per alternate, in the boxes on the item's page.