SharpeSoft Newsletter (September 2025)
- Dylan C
- 15 hours ago
- 8 min read
Inside...
SharpeSoft Webinar
Royal T Enterprises Feels the Royal Treatment with SharpeSoft
Refer a friend and earn $500
SharpeSoft Employee Highlight
The Power of the Summary Sheet
Anger and Forgiveness
The Story
Founded 20 years ago in St. George, Utah, Royal T Enterprises is a heavy civil construction
company that brings founder and president Tad Griffith’s decades of industry experience to the
southern Utah area. Specializing in jobs related to earthwork, underground utility, and hauling
transportation services, Royal T’s commitment to quality is felt in every relationship they build.
The Challenge
With a combined 40 years of experience, no one could ever say that Tad Griffiths had not
contributed significantly to the construction industry. But after so much time in the driver’s seat, Tad was beginning to look for a strategy by which he could reduce his direct involvement with Royal T Enterprises.
“We kind of have a family business now. My wife Alice is the CFO, I'm the president, and my son TJ is the chief operations officer out in the field. The expectation would be that Royal T Enterprises, along with our subsidiary companies Crown Transport and Royal T Trucking, would just keep running indefinitely under my son's control as Alice and I find a way to be less active day-to-day in the business.”
We here at SharpeSoft have spoken at length about the importance of a work-life balance in an
industry as demanding as construction. While his employees could absolutely be trusted without his direct oversight, Tad felt there was an opportunity to improve certain aspects of Royal T Enterprises at the same time. To that end, a proper estimating software solution was needed.
Previous Solutions
“Before I bought the SharpeSoft program, I just used Excel spreadsheets with multiple pages and databases that were formulated into a bid template. So, I was able to put equipment prices, labor prices, and material prices in the database. I would usually break the bid item down to the unit of measure before putting it into my Excel spreadsheet. So, I would get my vendor and sub quotes and break them out with a calculator and plug them into the sheet. It was all Excel, and the hard part about that was building a template I could bid off of and teach other people the way we bid. That way I could pass on my experience to others, without them having grown up in the industry and doing all the work physically.”
“I had to build a template that had all of our bid items by division, general conditions, demo, earthwork, sewer, storm drain, water, concrete, asphalt, and extras. Those are the divisions that we bid in a civil engineering contract. Now we have a template where we could bid all those items. But it was all in Excel, and the pricing was all done through Excel. But honestly, after 15 years of doing it day in and day out, I had got to the point where I was using standard unit prices that I could use in my area, in my industry, on my projects, and I really wasn’t estimating anymore. I was just taking the numbers that I had, the numbers that I had which were the numbers the industry would bear and started plugging them.”
“The plugging gets you the job and it pays the bills, but it doesn’t tell you anything. It didn’t tell me what I wanted to know. It didn’t tell me labor, equipment, material, and subs in different line items. It didn’t tell me what my banker and what my bonding company wanted to know. They’d ask, “what was your estimated profit going in?” “What did you clear?” “How come?” Well, those are the questions I should have been asking myself before, but I wasn’t worried about it, because I do 50 projects in a year, and they all go in one big bucket. Well, we’re not doing that anymore.”
“Before we got SharpeSoft, I always wanted to do project profit and loss, i.e. job costing. When we do an estimate for a project, we’re essentially establishing our budget. Our budget is our cost and our time. Because you must figure out time when you do an estimate, so that’s what your budget is: cost and time. We needed to have SharpeSoft to be able to track that budget and then can modify the budget accurately. I couldn’t do that with plug numbers. I was searching long and hard for estimating software. We looked at some big ones; AgTek was probably the first one, and then Trimble, then Bid2Win, then Heavy Civil. I had previously bought ProCore, and the big programs scared the shit out of me. I knew better than to buy a big one, I already had experience managing ProCore. That was an absolute disaster.”
Meet Andy Kitts
How long have you been with SharpeSoft?
"I've been with SharpeSoft for two years now."
What does your job entail?
"I work on what's called our Customer Success team. There I help get new clients implemented and trained, and continue to provide additional support afterwards."
What would your perfect weekend look like?
"At a cabin in the North Georgia mountains. Then lunch in a small town during the day, a relaxing nap in the afternoon, followed by watching a football game on TV outside over a fireplace with beautiful fall foliage to take in. Then some games at night with family, good food and good laughs."
Describe an interesting hobby or pastime that you have.
"I like to make World War II models in my free time, which there isn’t too much of, as well as spend time with the family Border Collie, Bella, which includes a daily 2 mile walk, frisbee session around lunchtime and then another play session late in the day."
What do you think is the most important skill that you bring to the table?
"I enjoy working with people and I have been working in the construction software industry for 16+ years now, so I enjoy bringing that experience and being able to help our clients."
What’s a cause that you are passionate about?
"My wife, Danielle, is a Pastoral Counselor and as part of her ministry of Rooted In Hope, LLC, we host Grief Care Retreats and Marriage Retreats in the North Georgia mountains. It is what God has called us to do in this season and it is what is most important to us."
Tell us a bit about your family.
"At the end of August, my wife and I will celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. My daughter Caylee is 26 years old and works at Bank OZK, and has been married for 5 years to her husband Josh, who works for Zaxby’s in the accounting department. My son Carter is 23 years old and is a welder at Caterpillar."
What inspired you to join the team here?
"God inspired me. I reached out to William Ontiveros during a particular season in my career, I had never met him, but God connected the two of us and me to SharpeSoft and here we are two years later!"
Totals
The Summary Totals tab contains the summary of all job costs with individual breakdowns, including costs for materials, equipment, bid expense, subcontractors, administrative expense, etc. Use this window to enter your markups by percentage of the totals shown for each cost type or enter specific individual amounts in each category. You can also enter your bid and general/administrative expenses along with an insurance markup amount or percentage.
Bonds
This tab displays the bond rate table for the job. You can select the bond rates from those previously configured in the Bond table and modify them to whatever amounts you need. Click on the Bonds button in the tool bar at the top of the window and select the bond rate table you want. To change a specific field, click in that field and enter the new amount. If you do not want to use an existing bond rate table, you can enter your bond amounts directly into the amount fields (1 through 10).
Cuts/Adds
Information entered in this window is usually used for those 'last minute' changes needed just prior to the bid submission. Use this window to add or subtract costs to the job without assigning the cost to any particular category. The total amount shown here is also displayed in the Totals tab.
Material
This window displays a breakdown of permanent, purchased, construction and owned material costs. The material costs displayed here include all sales tax. These totals come from the job Detail windows and cannot be changed. You can enter a markup for each of your material types in the Totals tab (beginning at the top right of the window), but to actually change the cost detail shown here, you must go to each individual job Detail window to enter, change or delete a specific material cost.
Labor
The Labor Cost Detail displays a breakdown of labor costs which come directly from the job detail windows. You can enter a markup for each type of detail shown (burden, benefits, etc.). The system will total the markups entered here and place the overall markup percentage in the Totals tab.
Equipment
Set up similarly to the Labor Detail window, this window includes a breakdown of both owned and rented equipment costs and allows you to markup each type of detail (burden, fuel & oil, etc.) displayed. The system will total the markups entered here and place the overall markup percentage in the Summary Totals tab.
Custom Spread
As you add your markups in the Summary Totals tab, the system is automatically spreading the markup between the top-level job bid-items. This is done by using the multiplication factor which the system derived from the markup percentages you entered. (The multiplication factor is displayed in the bottom right corner of the Totals tab.) Although the system will automatically perform the spread for you, if you decide you want to "custom" spread the markup yourself, or if you prefer to spread a larger percentage of the markup to one or more individual items, this window allows you to do that.
As a follower of Christ, our evidence of faith and God's work in our lives is carried out in the fruit of the spirit. As Galatians 5:22 says:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
[23] gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
I shared recently with a group of men a discussion on "anger," and how it's not a fruit of that spirit, but a condition of the flesh. God gave us many emotions, and many of us tend to ask "God gave us emotions, what am I supposed to do with them?"
Consider these two verses:
Ephesians 4:26-27:
"Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity."
James 1:19-20 says, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
When you find yourself in a constant state of aggravation, frustration, and losing your cool, it means that something else is going on in the heart. Awareness of this fact is the first opportunity to start searching your past for clues as to what is contributing to one's pain. Who, what, where, why, & when did something happen, leaving me scarred and now responding in the flesh? Has this contributed to a sense of bitterness and callousness of the heart, where you’re going from 1-10 in anger right out of the gate?
Forgiveness and repentance is a directive and a key to your healing. Jesus went to the cross for our sins to gift us salvation and unshackle us from death, guilt and shame, to make us whole again! If we can so easily receive this gift of salvation from God, by choosing to believe, repent, and follow him, how much more can we go back and forgive others in order to heal?
Forgiveness may be something you will have to work through. You may be able to determine the root of your anger, but in the end, you have to work through this in faith, with Jesus personally, in vulnerability, humility and submission to his Lordship. Jesus made a way to come directly to Him, and He can and will heal you!
There are dozens of scriptures discussing God's anger vs Man's anger, and how we distort it by our own selfish desires! I hope you find this as encouragement for the week and pray for you to be unshackled.
If you need prayer, please let us know and we will be glad to pray with and for you!
God Bless,
John Fortson
Support Department Team Leader
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