Transcription
What's up guys? In today's video, we're going to be talking about the different alternatives that you have when it comes to writing a water damage adjustment, other than Xactimate. A lot of contractors want to know, "Do I have to use Xactimate? Are there other alternatives?" The answer is yes. We're going to break them down in this video. Let's go.
All right guys, as we get started, go ahead and hit the like and the subscribe button, please. And tell me where you're from. Drop a comment, let me know where you guys are watching this video from.
Okay, so as we get started, here's what we're going to break down. Before we move away from Xactimate, I want to make this point clear. There are two different ways you can write your estimates. Okay? We're going to look at the platforms in a minute, but there's also the style of estimate. So, one style of estimate is like unit pricing. Unit pricing is when everything you write is, you're charging by the square foot, you're charging by the linear foot, you're charging by the square. Okay? That's unit pricing. That's where these platforms like Xactimate or whatever, they're putting the material and the labor all in the line item. That's called unit pricing. Okay?
The next way that you can do it is most commonly called time and material. And that's usually where they're going to put the material cost there, and they're going to put like a labor cost there. All right? So, time and material. Here's what I'm going to tell you. There's a third new way, and that's something we're going to share with you at the end that I invented, and it's called the Muddy Scope. This is the key to having a successful estimate. I'm just telling you, and I'll show you guys that at the end of the video. But traditionally, in restoration, the two big types are time of materials and unit pricing. Okay? And for me, after doing as many claims as I did, I found out that they had arguments for each, and I didn't like that. So I developed my own philosophy. It's called a Muddy Scope, and we'll show you that today.
So, let's first talk about the big three alternatives, if you will. Okay? Let me tell you why I move away from Xactimate. Xactimate is owned by the insurance company. Xactimate is owned by the insurance company, and it is a really big problem when their parent company is an insurance company. I just have a huge problem when the estimating software that I'm told to use is owned by the insurance company, and it comes with set pricing. Can't do it. Okay? That's why I have a problem with Xactimate. All right? They claim to be fair, they claim to be equal. They never called me and asked me how much I charge. If they wanted to, they could. That's because they don't care. It is the devil's tool, my friend. Xactimate is all right.
So, let's talk about a demon's tool. Because other than Xactimate, your first option is Symbility. Symbility is another estimating platform, just like Xactimate. Okay? It's the demon tool because it is also for adjusters. Okay? Symbility, they do exactly the same thing that Xactimate does. Their main customer are insurance companies and adjusters, not contractors. I want to make this very clear to you. Xactimate and Symbility, their primary customer base, bro, are adjusters and insurance carriers. That's it. They don't give a rip about the contractor. But they tell everybody, "You got to use it," and that's the freaking Kool-Aid y'all been drinking, dude, and it ain't true. Okay? So, but Symbility is an option if you want to go down that road. They're exactly like Xactimate, essentially. There's a few different adjusters or carriers that we use some Symbility. Um, Shelter Insurance did for a while. Wow. There's a handful. But I would say Xactimate's got 80% of the market share, probably 70 or 80, and Symbility's got a small percentage. Other than that, they're owned by CoreLogic. And guess who CoreLogic just bought, guys? Dash of Restoration Software. So Xactimate already had Restoration Manager, and now CoreLogic bought Dash. And why are they doing this stuff? Why are they buying restoration company software, guys? They're trying to get your data so they can further suppress pricing. I'm just telling you. Okay? This AI stuff is coming. When you guys keep running your crap through that, just know this: you're screwing yourself. Okay? The software companies that sell out to these estimating tools that are owned by the insurance company, that's giving them the ability to see the pricing, and then it gives them the ability to set the pricing, bro. Do you not understand? They get a chance to set the pricing. Why are you doing this? You've got to get off Xactimate. Don't get on Symbility. But that's your option. And you can write anything in Xactimate or Symbility in time and material or in unit pricing. Okay? But it doesn't matter how you do it, because you're going to price me the way that brings me to my second option.
This one's going to be time and materials. Okay? I used to think that it was a software for, but time material is essentially, you upload your pricing into the spreadsheet, you tabulate everything, and that's it. It's just, it's a big burn sheet. And where do you use time of material? For me, time of material, we used it on really large projects. Like on anything over $20,000. Anything under $20,000, I would just run a Muddy Scope. But on the really big ones, I would do it just so I can calculate my cost. Okay? Because I can estimate how long we're going to be doing these things, and I can put in a factor for what my labor is. It helps me arrive at my estimate, and I'll show you how we do here in a minute. But time materials typically reserved and used for large commercial projects. Okay?
All right, so look at this. This is the burn sheet. So I would try and make this a little bit smaller so you can see the scope of it as it's whole here, so you can see it's a big burn sheet that has everything on there. Okay? And I'll blow it back up. You can see how we get in there. So this is maybe a better idea of you can see the size, right? Like I do the the area, the items, the fans, the description. I put my cost in. I build my formulas from here. Okay? And then I will cut and copy and paste this stuff. And I'll show you how we do a cover sheet in a minute for the Muddy Scope. Um, but I'm going to wait till the end of the video. But I just want you to see this is an example of the burn sheet. Okay? And this just... Lola, sorry guys, my dog came to work with me today, and she's interrupting me. So here she is. This is Lola. Say, "Hey, Lola." My big fat English Bulldog, and she's barking in the background. So I apologize about that. Lola, what do you think about adjusters and carriers, baby? Huh? What do you think about them? Get them. So anyway, sorry about the distraction, guys. That's my dog. Yeah. So I put the fans, the description, the cost, the price. Okay? And I just tally it on up. So if you guys want to know more about the time material, I'm just telling you, essentially this is how we put it all together. Okay? And I will set it up like this, and then further on down, I will clean it all up. There's nothing really special about it. So time material is just going to be stuff where you're tallying all up, and then eventually I'll put a cover letter on it, and I'll show you that cover letter in a minute because it's basically the Muddy Scope. But the time material, large commercial stuff, if you're doing large commercial projects, guys, know this: you need to make sure that you number one, be getting a big deposit. Okay? A 20% deposit from the property owner, especially if it's commercial loss. Talk to the GM, get a hold of the adjuster right away. You need to be getting a 20% deposit in the first handful of days to a week, or at least let them know about what it's going to be, and get on a draw schedule with the adjuster. And if you don't know how to come up with a quick draw schedule, then you don't need to be doing that job, because that job is way over your head. If you can't determine how big that job is going to be in 48 hours, you got a problem. You got a problem, and you need to talk to somebody that can help you. Okay? Partner with another restoration company, let that thing go. But you're going to get burned if you're not careful. Okay? All right, so that's, that's the other one, time and materials. Okay? Make sure that you're on a draw schedule if you're doing those.
So this brings us to our third option, and this is what we use: QuickBooks. Now, I'll tell you this, you can use something like Joist. A lot of guys will use Joist. We used it in the early days of my handyman company, but there's no reason not to use QuickBooks because you're going to need it for an accounting software, and it will work just as well. Okay? So we used QuickBooks. We just put all the pricing in there. You can go to workwithshane.com. You can learn more. If you become our client, we basically build all this back-end pricing for you, so you don't need Xactimate. It's all set for you, or I'll help you set your own pricing. So give the finger to Xactimate, Symbility. Don't pay $2,500 a year. And once you come in our ecosystem and you got it, it's yours, bro. You own it, not me. All right? So anyway, QuickBooks Online, I would use that instead of Joist, and that's simply because if you put it in Joist, you got to invoice it, right? So why not write your estimates in the same invoicing software and platform? There was no reason not to. It's essentially it. There's no reason not to. Some platforms like Joist are fine, and they may be more simple in the beginning, but once you have what we've got, there's no reason not to do it all right there. Okay?
So about QuickBooks, why do I like QuickBooks? Because it's a Muddy Scope. I can build templates, I can put my own pricing in there, I can control my pricing, and I don't have Xactimate and I don't have Symbility breathing down my throat trying to tell me what to do. I give them boys the finger, you know what I'm saying? So, um, um, y'all want to look at a Muddy Scope? Let's go look at a Muddy Scope. So this is an example of a QuickBooks estimate. All right? And number one, this is why they're going to say it's not automated. And bro, you can't tell me it ain't automated. Bro, this is automated. That's all there is to it. That is straight automated. That's the full page of clean neatness. Okay? But here's my point: it's not written like a conventional Xactimate or Symbility estimate, and they don't have a way to argue it. So we build all of these items: initial response, stabilization. So these are basically our categories. Category, description, we build price. And if you notice, this doesn't look like anything y'all have ever done before, for the most part. Why? Because it's a Muddy Scope, bro. It's a Muddy Scope, and it works. Okay? And it just reads like a story and it makes sense. This is our $7,000 template, or whatever we charge for initial response. We charge for equipment setup and delivery. Notice I don't charge by the hour. I'm not going to get in there and hem-haw about the argument about the hours. There's stabilization. We charge for service call. $178. They don't like to pay for emergency service call during business hours. They don't like to pay for EMS, emergency service call in business hours. You know what I did? I don't call it that. It's called this: "Pay it. Pay me, homie." So I put a PPE bundle. Like these are an example of a Muddy Scope. They don't know how to argue this. They don't have this pricing. Do you understand? Can y'all understand? Drop a comment and let me know. Again, if you want this stuff, go to workwithshane.com. Okay? And I can talk to you about our 30-day program. If you want me to teach you this, we have a two-day event coming up in Nashville. Okay? It's going to be a small event, a private event. WaterDamageBootcamp.com. Go to WaterDamageBootcamp.com. You can get your tickets to that, and uh, we will teach you this. You definitely have not a non-disclosure agreement, and you can't be an adjuster. You have to have a restoration company. We will check if you buy the ticket at WaterDamageBootcamp.com. We're going to call you, and if you don't have that, I'm going to refund your money, and you can't come. Okay? But anyway, this is a good example of a Muddy Scope. Okay? Where it states what we're doing. Service call, like we're putting the prep in containment. So they just don't have this. We're doing some work here with paper and plastic, but we're charging $288. You understand? And then setup and delivery, $640. Instead of hourly. Okay? And then we've got some equipment charges, which is cool. But they don't know what a PPE bundle is. That's my pricing. That's what I do, baby. And so anyway, I'm not going to show you any more of that because that's enough. You want more of that? That's fine. I got adjusters that've been watching me. So y'all want to go talk about that burn sheet again? This was the burn sheet that you guys saw a minute ago. Here's how it sets when we look at it on a Muddy Scope. So we basically build a document. Says we put on the cover page, and it'll say, "This document outlines what we did upon the inspection. We found this was going on." And it's just like a, a one-page write-up of what it is. We would typically put a link to like some photos from CompanyCam. CompanyCam's the photo application that we use. If you'll notice this summary, the scope of charges right here, this $18,000. All of this is this area right here. Okay? So we basically cut and copy this and plug it into this document here. Okay? And every one of these packout, content items, etc., we unpack each one of these line items down here. And again, if you want me to teach you how to do this, come to the boot camp. That's how we'll show you how to do it. Okay? But like this is a good example of Muddy Scope. See where it says it doesn't list the cost of the fan per day? It's how many units times four days. You got to make them do calculations. Okay? Adjusters are lazy, bro. They ain't going, they ain't going, they ain't taking that calculator out, bro. They want to go home. They're tired. Make them do the math. This is itemized, but this is Muddy. Okay? They don't have a way to quickly refute it. All right? But it is detailed, and it's very itemized, and it's very clean. So this is time of material written as a Muddy Scope. The secret, my friend, is a Muddy Scope. Do you understand? The secret is the Muddy Scope. You don't see labor hours all in here, do you? And this job right here, this job was paid in full. Paid in full by Big Red. Paid in full. Okay? Is this helpful? Hopefully you guys will enjoy this. Like you can go back and you can stop and you can scroll, do whatever you want. But this is an example of a Muddy Scope, guys. The secret to getting paid is to know what you're doing and be ahead of the game. Billing insurance, doing this work, it is a game. Okay? They, yes, they will pay your QuickBooks. They will pay this. I'm telling you. I've done over a thousand claims, and this is what we moved to in the end. With probably the first 500, I probably did an Xactimate. Okay? And I finally got tired of getting my freaking nose shut in the door, you know what I'm saying? So I started doing something different. Okay? So hopefully that's helpful in this video. The trick is the Muddy Scope. Okay? It's not time of material, it's not Xactimate, it's not the unit price. And you need to write it in such a way so that you are making the profit that you need to make. If you guys aren't, go to workwithshane.com, and we can get on a call and put you through our 30-day program. If you want to come learn from me in person, go to WaterDamageBootcamp.com. You can fly to Nashville this fall, and we'll go do that two-day event. Okay? So hopefully this is helpful. I will see you guys in the next video.
Hey guys, if you enjoyed that video, I've got three things for you. Number one, if you haven't yet, click on my face below and be sure to subscribe to the channel. Okay? We put out new content each and every week. Also, if you want me to help you grow your company, go to workwithshane.com. Workwithshane.com. Put in your information, we get on a call and see how we can help you grow your company. Lastly, there'll be some other videos right here. If you want to watch more content about growing your restoration company, check out one of these videos. We'll see you guys on the next one.