2026, April 10th – Move From Plans to Quantities

April 10th, 2026

Hosted by: Taha, Trainer at Contractor Foreman

Topic: The Takeoff Tool — AI-Powered Quantity Takeoffs Inside Contractor Foreman

Webinar Description

In this advanced training session, Taha takes a deep dive into the Takeoff tool — one of the newest features inside Contractor Foreman, currently available in preview — and walks attendees through how to use it to speed up quantity takeoffs, improve estimating accuracy, and reduce the manual effort of reading through construction drawings.

Taha opens by grounding the session in a real-world problem: takeoffs are one of the most time-consuming and consequential tasks in construction project management. Getting quantities wrong at the estimating stage can mean submitting a low bid and losing money on the job, or ordering the wrong amount of material and stalling progress on site. He explains that the Takeoff tool is designed to make this process faster and more accessible — whether it’s being used for initial project estimates, change orders, material ordering, or just a quick sanity check on quantities.

The session walks through the full workflow: uploading a set of drawings as a PDF, watching the AI automatically label and categorize pages by type (architectural, structural, electrical, etc.), setting the correct drawing scale, and using the AI panel to perform area, linear, and count measurements directly on the drawing. Taha shows how the AI generates an initial takeoff automatically upon upload, and how users can refine it using manual measurement tools, the AI chat prompt feature, and the Search Element tool — which allows users to zoom into a specific element on a drawing (such as a GFCI outlet or an LED fixture), take a snapshot, and have the AI find and count every matching instance on the page.

A key theme throughout the session is the importance of human review alongside AI output. Taha is direct about the limitations of relying on AI entirely for estimating — quantities can be mislabeled, wall heights may need to be manually confirmed, and any errors that go unreviewed can flow directly into a submitted estimate. The tool is positioned not as a replacement for an estimator’s judgment, but as something that handles the tedious measurement work so that judgment can be applied where it matters most. César Macedo also joins to walk through using the AI chat to calculate labor hours based on counted quantities, and to clarify how committed costs and bills interact when takeoff data feeds into the estimating workflow.

The session also covers how to export takeoff data as a CSV and import it directly into the Contractor Foreman estimate, so that quantities flow into the estimate template without manual re-entry — leaving only cost codes and pricing to be filled in.

Attendees were encouraged to share feedback on the tool, as the development team is actively incorporating suggestions during the preview phase. A complimentary one-on-one training session was offered to all attendees for follow-up questions.

This session is ideal for:

• Estimators and project managers who currently do takeoffs manually or in a separate tool and want to streamline the process
• Contractors looking to reduce the time between receiving drawings and producing an estimate
• Teams doing electrical, mechanical, or detailed architectural takeoffs who need a faster way to count and measure items across large drawing sets
• Anyone curious about how AI fits into construction estimating — and what its realistic capabilities and limitations are today