HBXL

Thirty years ago, HBXL Managing Director, Adrian Wild set up a building company. He went on to construct in excess of 300 extensions and around 80 new homes, achieving an equivalent turnover of some £4-5 million per annum.

As the company became successful Adrian found he had less time to spend on site, as all his time was taken up by doing estimates for potential clients.

Fed up with confusing Price Books and SMM7 methods that were written for surveyors rather than the general builder, Adrian went in search of a software package to help him with his estimates and soon found there was nothing on the market suitable for his size business – a small construction firm with six employees and various contractors.

Knowing that a large proportion of the UK’s construction businesses are about this size, he identified a niche market for an estimating product and spent several years working with software developers to develop the first estimating system.

In 2000 House Builder XL Ltd (HBXL) was officially set up to launch ‘Estimator & Project Manager’ - the first estimating software specifically for general builders - and has been operating as a software house ever since.

In 2001 Estimator and Project Manager became linked to one of the UK’s largest builders merchants, to ensure 100% accuracy of the prices being quoted. Over the years the team at HBXL has dedicated themselves to continuous product improvement, the result of which was EstimatorXpress, launched in October 2004.

Having undergone major upgrades over the years EstimatorXpress has changed the way builders estimate by becoming the first estimating software with easy to understand on-screen building drawings into which you enter your dimensions. Now with the latest release of EstimatorXpress v.8 HBXL have the UK’s most popular estimating software with over 9000 users benefiting from unrivalled estimating speed and accuracy.

Not only this, HBXL have maintained product developments over the years to turn from the UK’s top estimating company to a complete building software solutions provider. From estimating and project management to CAD drawing, health and safety management and professional contracts, HBXL now have a suite of software packages that can do the lot!

The Complete Suite now comprises:

• EstimatorXpress
• EstimatorXpress Plumbing & Heating Edition
• PlansXpress
• Health & Safety Xpert
• ContractsXpert
• SketchXpress
• OrderXpress - launch anticipated Autumn 2009