How the McStud Estimating Tool Simplifies Repair Estimates
Estimates are time-consuming and take up valuable resources and manpower. Anthony McNee, the 2024 FenderBender/ABRN Best Repair Planner/Estimator and blueprinter at Ultimate Collision Repair, in Edison, New Jersey, created the McStud Estimating Tool (MET) to enhance his team’s accuracy and efficiency.
McNee has long used CCC for estimating, but he had to dig through lists of operations to find specific Part Codes while building each blueprint/repair plan. After identifying if it is a repair or replace part, he'd manually type out the operations, do the calculations per operation, and input the numbers.
MET solves the tedium of doing handwritten estimates by breaking down the operations down into a systematic way in an external spreadsheet, what McNee describes as “essentially Part Codes on steroids”. It lists all of McNee’s operations required for the decision of repair or replace or whichever portion of the estimate one is writing, calculates all the operations, and the output is format-ready to be added to a digital clipboard to be copied over to the estimating system.
For each estimate, McNee just inputs the numbers and vehicle information and waits for the calculations to finish. Once it’s done, he can transfer the information into CCC or another estimating tool. His entire team uses it, and McNee says he can’t go back to handwriting estimates again. It ensures consistency, accuracy, efficiency, reduces fatigue, and makes training easier.
“Everything is organized; everything is formatted. It's very difficult to miss something, right?” McNee says. “Because all I'm doing is just copying and pasting, and it saves me time. It’s very accurate; it's very efficient.”
Using Google Sheets as its template, it has separate sections for electrical, scans, miscellaneous, bumper covers, blending or repairing metal parts, and anything else the estimate needs. Users can also add the materials they’ll need to perform specific repairs.
“It’s pretty much going to hit every criterion that you would when you’re working on an estimate,” he says. “This is like your sandbox because you’re the one plugging the information in. It’s not vehicle-specific; it’s very generalized.”
Named after his high school nickname, the tool is currently free, and McNee has about 20 beta testers using the platform. As he continues to work on its development each day after work, he took some time to answer questions about McStud and its future.
Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Where did you get the idea for this? Were other tools not doing what you wanted them to?
My whole idea behind this was to take estimating from what it is currently and take it into the future. [It's] giving writers more time back in their day, making training easier, keeping estimates accurate, consistent, and efficient. I believe the days of manually typing every operation out, having to remember what operation goes where and when, [and] having to remember every individual calculation are over.
Are there any other apps or tools that do this?
There are similar. There is SCRS BOT [Blueprint Optimization Tool] and EstimateIQ. The way the SCRS BOT works — and I’ve only seen videos, but I’ve never actually used it — is it’s a desktop app and populates all your operations. It can kind of read your estimate and give you feedback: ‘Hey, you should add this here.’ If I wanted to get my Clean for Delivery, for example, I can press a button, I can copy it, and it posts a code and populates it. For that to work, you would have everything in your part codes already and they would link it together. Now I can go to SCRS BOT, get my code, and paste it to CCC. In my opinion, you still fall under the same thing. It’s very extensive to look through…but then you go back to the same system of I’m still using my part codes. It’s not dynamic. It doesn’t change my labor.
I did a demo with [EstimateIQ]. They’ll read our estimate, scan what other estimates were done in the area and what insurance paid for, and then give you feedback…In my opinion, I don’t care what insurance paid for another shop. I care about what the car needs.
As you were working on this, did anyone help you with the development or was it all you?
It was all me, and my wife is also working for the company. She's working on the website and some of the marketing and business strategies as well. I’m going to be sharing sheets with people so they can use it. I’m going to have access, so I can go in there to see if there are any issues, errors, and fix any bugs. And I also just found a way that I can push updates to every single person. So, everybody who has a sheet like this, I can give you all more dropdowns. I’ll be able to go in and send an update like that I’m building a support system for it as well. I’m running all the numbers on the back end, just making sure everyone is loading correctly and there are no errors.
How are you able to support it with your full-time job?
I’m monitoring it every single day and I’m using it every single day. Every guy at my shop uses it. I come home from work and work on it as well. If I’m just copying and pasting my stuff over, I can sit here and run numbers, text people back, [and] answer phone calls. I don’t have to sit and take my time and focus typing it out or running operations or calculations.
Do you have any plans to try and monetize it in the future or potentially sell it? Or is this going to stay as a free option for people who want to use it?
My goal is to make this into a monthly subscription. I have three tiers in mind that I'm thinking of. One is that you'll get the standard like this, everything that I have in these sheets now, and I'll be able to push updates and monitor it. Another idea is to custom-build spreadsheets for people for body shops so it's instant. You don't have to wait a minute. You have all your codes and formulas in your own operation list that you guys write for whatever body shop wants to write. Then I think just the other idea would just be if you guys want to make your own, you'll be able to use my copy-and-paste feature and subscribe for that as well. But I am also working on turning this into an actual desktop app. I’m still trying to figure that out. So, I'm working on building this up and then turning it into a desktop app.
The MET website is still a work in progress. Anyone interested in learning more about MET or trying the tool can email McNee. Check out the demo below.
About the Author
Peter Spotts
Associate Editor
Peter Spotts is the associate editor of FenderBender and ABRN. He brings six years of experience working in the newspaper industry and four years editing in Tech. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western New England University with a minor in integrated marketing communications and an MBA. A sci-fi/fantasy fan, his current 2010 Honda Civic is nicknamed Eskel, after the character from the Witcher book series, for the scratch marks on its hood.