SharpeSoft Newsletter (December 2025)
- Dylan C
- 5 days ago
- 8 min read
Inside...
SharpeSoft Webinar
South Bay Grading Doubles Output with SharpeSoft
Refer a friend and earn $750
SharpeSoft Employee Highlight
The Audit Trail: Keep Track of All of Your Important Bid Item Changes
The Reason for the Season
The Story
Located in balmy Santa Clara, California, South Bay Grading is a fully licensed Class A General Engineering Contractor. With over 30 years of experience in the field, owner and President Shawn Dean brings a mindset geared towards success to the Northern California construction landscape. Adaptable and honest, South Bay Grading has achieved marked success in their field, be it working for public or private entities.
We sat down with project manager and estimator Aaron Hosmer to get the full story.
The Challenge
All around successful at targeting their chosen line of work already, South Bay Grading knew that there was an opportunity for growth, if only they could reasonably manage an increase in bidding output. The source of the trouble quickly became apparent: Microsoft Excel could simply not keep up with more demand.
After shopping around with a few of the construction industry’s big names, South Bay landed on SharpeSoft in part due to the culture of serving with excellence we strive to maintain daily.
“I think we came across William Ontiveros and SharpeSoft about a year or a year and a half ago. We engaged with him when we were bidding work out of Excel. We had talked to B2W and HCSS, and we really liked William’s hands-on approach with the sales process. The reason why we were looking around is we knew we wanted to step up our estimating volume. We knew we needed something besides doing it in Excel.”
Previous Solutions
“We started off with a basic Excel template that was one bid item. It has your labor, materials, equipment, hours, rate per hour, a markup column and then a total column. Then we’d copy and paste that down so we could have mobilization, clearing and grubbing, cut to fill, etc., all the way down, and that would be for grading. Then I’d create a new tab for demo, for underground pipe… all of that stuff. Then once we started getting a little bit more sophisticated, we’d start putting in overhead items.
“One of the biggest issues with Excel, it’s not a huge one but to a lot of people it is; spreading your overhead across all the bid items, which is something that SharpeSoft does really well. There’s a lot of tedious manual manipulation of cells and checking formulas. Sometimes you feel like you’re going crazy, you’re 10 minutes before the bid and you’re trying to get this all dialed, and you have to make sure that you didn’t misplace cell C1 with cell D1.”
“I would get this feeling of dread when there was a rebid or they changed up some bid items. I would be like, oh man I know what this means, and I would be picturing all of the operations I would have to do to make this work in Excel. It’s another six hours of Excel work. In SharpeSoft it’s just much simpler, much cleaner. Replicating estimates and item masters, which we’re getting pretty deep into right now, a lot of those features have cut out some of the tedium and that cringy feeling of bidding work from the process.”
“There have been times when a cell got copied over wrong or a formula was wrong. One of them was updating material pricing. If you want to go in and adjust your material across the job, it’s a simple operation. That kind of thing right there, which could be kind of a crazy operation in Excel between the complexity and uncertainty is removed with SharpeSoft.. If you want to swap out a 20,000 lbs. excavator for a 55,000 lbs. excavator, it’s just a snap. The same is true with changing labor rates or kinds of equipment.”
Meet Andrea Becklehimer
Two Years with SharpeSoft
Hey SharpeSoft family! I’m Andrea, I’m at my two-year mark here on the Solutions Team. My role is all about building partnerships, which means I get to be one of the first voices potential clients hear. I absolutely love helping them get set up for success and feel passionate about helping others in any way that I can.
The reason I came to SharpeSoft in the first place? It was all about the family values we uphold here. Sense of community and looking out for one another is something I genuinely believe in.
From Coast to Coast: My Background
In my 30 years, I’ve traveled to a lot of places and met a lot of wonderful people. That experience gave me a super important skill: the ability to connect with people from completely different backgrounds and generations. I honestly think that’s what makes me good at my job; it’s easy for me to connect with people.
The Lovely World of a Boy Mom
I’m a proud boy mom to three amazing young men: 16, 8, and 5. This year we celebrated my husband, Jonathan’s military retirement. We have been together for ten of those years, and it has been an adventure! Our home is always lively, to say the least!
Right now, life revolves around wrestling. Our sophomore just made the varsity team, and our 8-year-old is a state champ. My five-year-old is our mini-chef for all the big appetites! Between the three of them, we’re constantly cheering, traveling, and trying to keep up with the endless energy.
My Happy Place
I have a few hobbies that keep me balanced:
Cooking: love being in the kitchen and creating a delicious meal. If we go to a restaurant, it’s usually something unique, so I don’t compare it to my own dinners.
Running: I try to run a few miles every evening; I’ll typically lace up and head to a track. When the weather (and daylight) permits, I visit the trails and enjoy the beautiful scenery here in Colorado.
I love anything water/sun related. My perfect weekend would be all about family, food, and the sun: a relaxing weekend on the beach with the whole family, capped off with a delicious dinner. Doesn’t get much better than that for me.
The Audit Trail is a log of every change made to a job, including the affected bid items, the type of change, the date and time the change was made, and by whom. It also tells you the old value before anything was changed, the new value, and the overall change to the system. A single change can generate more than one log-file entry. For example, changing the quantity on a bid item will log two entries. The first would show the quantity's old and new values. The second shows the change in total cost due to the quantity change.
The Audit Trail window is accessed from the Security menu and from the Summary and Rounding Sheet windows.
Field information
Job: This field displays the name of the job that you have selected for the audit. To change jobs, click Search Select the job and choose the job you want from the Select Job window.
Current job total: This field displays the current total estimate for the job.
Bid Date and Time: When a job is selected in the Job field, the job's bid date and time are automatically displayed in these fields.
Start audit at current date and time: Click the button to the right of the Time field and then click Apply (lower right corner) to start auditing at the current date and time. The date and time will be displayed in the Audit start date and Time fields.
Calendar panel: Select the date that you want the audit to begin. Use the colored arrows, asterisk, or month/year drop-down menus to adjust the proper year and date.
Clock: Use the clock to set the start time for your audit. Position your mouse over the minute hand and drag your mouse around the clock face until you have set the desired minute. Then, position the mouse over the hour hand, until the arrow becomes a hand symbol. Right click and select AM or PM. Now drag the hour hand to the desired hour.
Alternatively, you can type the time of day into the Time field above the clock. Clicking the arrow button Audit Trail time set button to the right of the Time field starts the audit at the current time.
Disable audit for this job: Check this box if you wish to stop auditing the job displayed at the top of the window. Remember, if you change your mind and reset the times you want to audit the job, you will need to uncheck this box to begin auditing again.
View Activity: Click this button to open the Audit Trail Activity window. From there you can review all of the captured log files.
Audit Trail Activity Window
The Audit Trail Activity window is where the brunt of the audit information is contained. The activity window displays a log of all changes made to the selected job from the date the audit was initiated.
You can set the system to refresh the window at a specified interval, which is useful when you need to monitor the work of several users in "real time." If you need to make a spread sheet containing the log information, you can export the audit to Excel.
The Sort by tabs at the top of the table allow you to sort the data by user ID, date and time, or by item code, and you can use the Jump to date field to view activity for a specific day. From the toolbar you can use the Filter button to narrow down the table information according to date range, computer name, item package, data file name or overall change.
If needed, you can export the activity data to a spreadsheet by clicking Export to Excel in the window’s context menu (check out our Excel Import/Export blog).
When you click on a line in the table, the panel at the bottom of the window displays the data specific to that entry, including file name, computer name, bid item code and description, and cost change.
SET REFRESH RATE
From the Options menu, you can set the system to refresh the window at a specified interval, which is useful when you need to monitor the work of multiple users in real time.
The reason for the season!
Every year in most of the world there is a celebration that involves singing, gifts, peace and joy. Most of us in the western world call this celebration Christmas. Do we think about the real reason for the season? I have been in the construction industry my entire life. I learned at an early age that I needed to produce to be accepted, I needed to perform to gain stature or recognition. Everything was on my shoulders, my ability to survive was solely on me and my performance. That mindset created tremendous stress and all kinds of heartache with unhealthy behaviors; I hurt myself and others around me.
Have you thought about the best gift you have ever received? What was it? How long did the satisfaction last?
At a very dark and low place in life toward the end of 2014 beginning of 2015, what seemed to be a point of absolute no hope, I received an amazing gift! On Sept 1, 2015 I gave my life to Christ. I received the gift of eternal life. I started the journey of seek what true unconditional love was. This free gift changed my life. I am not at all perfect, but I have a hope that is eternal, the hope is larger than the problems I face. I would like to tell you a bit about this gift.
Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV
[8] For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, [9] not of works, lest anyone should boast.
A gift I could not work for, a gift I could not earn.
So I struggled with why I as a sinner would receive a gift like this?
Romans 5:8 NKJV
[8] But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
William Ontiveros
Chief Service Officer
Comments