How to Create a Construction Calculator to Qualify Projects in Google Sheets

Step-by-step instructions on how to create a construction project qualification calculator with a free template in Google Sheets

If you’re looking for an easy way to quickly qualify a potential client or construction project for your business, this article will walk you through creating a simple construction calculator using a free Google Sheets template in just a few short steps. 

Aside from being free to use, Google Sheets also offers you the ability to easily share and collaborate with your team in real-time on your calculator from anywhere.

While the Google Sheets template library doesn’t offer a template specifically designed as a project qualification calculator for construction, they do offer one that can work with just a few slight modifications. 

With that being said, if you’d prefer to start with a project calculator template that was built just for construction and designed in Google Sheets, check out our free construction project qualification calculator template that we've created.

Additionally, if you'd like to learn more about how to choose the right construction projects that lead to more profit for your business, be sure to read our article on How to Quickly Qualify and Score Construction Leads.

To begin creating your construction calculator from the template offered in Google Sheets, just follow the step-by-step instructions and images below:

Getting your construction calculator started in Google Sheets

1. Click here to open Google Docs. You’ll need to log in or create a free Google account to get started.
    
2. Open Google Sheets by clicking the 3 lines at the top left and selecting “Sheets".
   
   

3. You should see the template gallery at the top, but if you don’t, click on the main menu at the top right, then “settings,” then check mark “Templates - Display recent templates on home screens.”

4. Click “template gallery” to expand the gallery and see all your options.
   
   

5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and locate the template called “Pros and cons’, which you should find located directly above the “Education” template section.
   
   

6. Click on the “Pros and cons” template to open the file and get started.
   
   

7. Since this template wasn’t created specifically to be a construction calculator to qualify projects, we’ll want to customize it to fit our needs.
   
   To do that, start by clicking the title and replace it with “Project Qualification Calculator”. Next, delete the text in cell B8 and replace the text in cell B9 with “Project”. Finally, highlight all of the text and numbers in both the Pros and Cons columns and hit delete.
   
   Repeat these steps for the following two sections, but replace “Project” with “Client” in the second section and “Budget” in the third section.
   
   Reminder: If you’d prefer to use a template created for qualifying residential construction projects that you don’t need to customize, you can download our free construction project qualification calculator for Google Sheets and get started from there. 
   
   
8. Once you’ve made the necessary customizations, you can now begin entering your pros and cons for each section based on the section topic (i.e. pros of Project, cons of Budget, etc.). See image below for an example.
   
   

9. Once you’re done entering your pros and cons, give each one a score between 1 and 5 based on the weight of its importance. 1 meaning it’s not important at all and 5 meaning it’s extremely important.
   
   
10. Once all of your scores have been entered, you’ll see that each section now has an overall score based on the formula included in this template. If the number is positive, it simply means that your pros have outweighed your cons in that particular section.
    
    

11. To arrive at an overall project score to help you determine if the project is qualified, we’ll need to make one more modification with the following steps:
    
    

1. Highlight cell B42 and enter the title of “Project Qualification Score”
2. Next, highlight cell B43 and copy/paste the following formula: =B13+B25+B37 then hit enter.
3. Highlight cell B43 once again to make any formatting changes you prefer. 
   
   

After you’ve completed these steps, your template should appear similar to the image below:

12. As a final step, be sure to make a copy of this construction calculator (File -> Make A Copy) to create a master project qualification template that you can continue to reuse. Name it and organize it accordingly within your Google Drive storage structure.

Understanding your overall project qualification score

Similar to the scoring for each individual section, any positive number indicates that the pros have outweighed the cons and that the project is likely a good fit for you and your team. Whereas any negative number would indicate that the cons have outweighed the pros and it’s likely not a good fit. 

It’s important to remember that whatever the score might be, this is just a one of several factors to consider when evaluating your potential projects, so use it as a guide rather than the ultimate answer in your decision. 

If you decide that this Google Sheets template is not for you, and you choose not to use our construction project qualification calculator, you’re likely to find several other free construction calculators with a simple search on Google. 

P.S. We've also created the #1 construction estimate template for Google Sheets that is 100% free to download and use as your own. Check out the video below to learn more and then download it for free.