01
The quantity that was text
A cell formatted as text sits outside every formula on the sheet. The subtotal looks correct. It is short by the value of that line.
Proposal control for gear-heavy bids
Six figures of gear,one spreadsheet,and the night before the deadline.
That is where the margin quietly goes.
ShowWorth is a proposal system for the firms that bid complex physical builds. Every number traced to the document it came from, every quantity checked by a pass that did not write it, and a client-facing proposal that reconciles to the final number before it is sent.
Source documents
- RFP42 lines
- Design deck23 lines
- Floor plan12 lines
- Vendor quotes, 865 lines
Scope register142 items
Reconciled to the final number
01
The document that wins the job is the one nobody controls
Delivery has systems. Inventory has systems. Accounting has systems. The proposal gets built the night before by whoever is still awake, out of a spreadsheet nobody else can read.
02
The quote that moved
A supplier revises a price after the deck is built. The deck does not know. The number ships anyway.
03
The line read two ways
You priced installation for one crew day. The client read it as complete. That gap surfaces on site, and by then it is yours.
04
The total that does not tie
The proposal says one figure and the schedule behind it says another. Whoever finds it first sets the price of the conversation.
02
What you receive
Four artefacts, and they agree with each other by construction rather than by proofreading.
A
The workbook
Your cost model, structured, with every line pointing back at the document it came from. It stays yours. It never goes to the client.
B
The verification report
An independent pass over the arithmetic, the quantities, and the source register. Exceptions are raised before the proposal is written, not after it is sent.
C
The client proposal
A document the room can follow: the walk through the space, the engineering shown rather than listed, and the commercial terms in language a procurement officer can sign. Interactive on screen, and a print version that matches it exactly.
D
The engineering package
Drawings, lighting and rigging plots, and a power report, generated from the same data as the price. When the client asks how you arrived at a number, the answer is already drawn.
The process
Eight stages. The numbers flow one way.
Every stage has a gate. Nothing moves on before the one behind it is settled, and nothing flows backwards. What each stage does is a conversation, not a web page.
- 01
- 02
- 03
- 04
- 05
- 06
- 07
- 08
01
Ingest
Everything the bid is based on, in one place and accounted for.
02
Decipher
Nothing in the documents goes unread, and nothing arrives unattributed.
03
Structure
One register your team can read, adjust, and argue with.
04
Cross-reference
You find out what you already own before you commit to it.
05
Source
The shortfall gets priced deliberately rather than in a rush.
06
Price and verify
A separate pass has to agree with the first one before anything moves.
07
Publish
The client document is produced from the workbook, not retyped from it.
08
Deliver
What reaches the client carries no cost model, ever.
Read off the package
Real numbers, off issued documents.
None of this was written for the website. Every figure sits in lighting plot v1.1, power report v1.2, or rigging plot v1.1 of the demonstration package, and you can look each one up in the example.
DemonstrationKestrel IMX 2027 is a complete demonstration built on invented companies and invented numbers.
0
fixtures on the plot
nine instrument types
0
DMX slots
16 of 18 universes in use
0
hoist points
each individually calculated
0
circuits
259 A at 208V
Connected load by zone
68 kW connected · 92 kW ordered · 26% headroom
Source: Power report v1.2, §1
Point loads, 32 hoist points
heaviest 950 lb · capacity 2,000 lb · 53% headroom
Source: Rigging plot v1.1, R-01 · 21,354 lb total
Interactive
Rough numbers in five seconds.
Drag the sliders. Approximate rigging load, power, truss and gear count update as the build changes, rough enough to size a quote and to spot a problem early.
0kg
approx rigging load
including hardware
0kW
approx power
near 0 A at 400V three phase
0m
approx front truss
linear span
0
gear pieces
on this estimate
Rough ballpark, illustrative only
RANGE
Real pricing is walked through on a call, once we have seen your rates.
ShowWorth Plots
The drawing that makes the number defensible.
A proposal that says "32 hoist points" is a claim. A rigging plot showing all 32 with their design loads against the venue capacity is evidence. Plots is the layer underneath: what actually hangs, what it weighs, what powers it, and whether it delivers the light it says it does.
- 1,000+fixtures in the library
- 4disciplines in one model
- 4data points per fixture
What every fixture carries
- PhotometricsBeam and field angles, output, coverage at distance
- Power consumptionWatts and inrush, per unit
- WeightWorking weight, for load and truss
- DimensionsFor fit, clearance, and transport
Which is why the rigging calculations run off the weights already in the model, rather than a second spreadsheet that has to agree with it.
- Lighting
- Audio
- Video
- Cabling
Lighting plot
Positions, channels, colour, universes. With the photometrics proved, not just the symbols drawn.
Rigging plot
Every hoist point calculated on its own and checked against the venue point capacity.
Power report
Connected load by zone, distribution, and headroom. Before you order power.
Bill of materials
Fixtures, truss, motors, cable. The quantities the workbook is priced from.
Every fixture in the Plots library reproduces its own published throw table under self-check, and the library is covered by a passing test suite.
The fixture library holds more than a thousand entries, and every one carries its photometrics, its power consumption, its weight, and its physical dimensions.
Plots covers lighting, audio, video, and cabling in one model, and the rigging calculations are run from the same weights the model already holds.
Plots is the source of truth for fixture, truss, motor and cable counts and for power draw. Proposals consumes that bill of materials directly and does not retype a number from it.
Plots is v0.1: built, tested, and used on the demonstration package. It has not yet run on a paid client engagement.
03 / Verification
The pass that did not write it
Every quote gets checked by a verification stage that has no stake in the answer being right. It recalculates independently, compares against the source register, and raises exceptions rather than corrections, because the person who built the number should be the one to decide what it becomes.
Nothing goes to a client until the proposal and the workbook agree.
The site opens shortly
What you have read here is the argument. The worked example, the engineering package behind it, and the ways to work together arrive together rather than in pieces.
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