“(Editor’s note: Jamie Chase, guest columnist for Cut to the Chase, which is printed each Friday in the Index, has been busy with her company’s successful release of Contractor’s Wizard. Her column will be available in the Dec. 8 issue.)ContractQuest, a Tacoma-based company that came up with a new software product to save contractors time on the job, has been informed that the software tool, released Nov. 27, is already bringing the company great reviews.Within three days of its release copies of Contractor’s Wizard had been downloaded by 150 customers from two of the world’s largest download sites, ZDNet and CNET, whose users at both sites rated the ContractQuest product with an overall perfect score of five stars.The scores were based on features of the software, ease of use, stability and value.The company expects that Jumbo.com and Tucows.com will follow the lead of CNET and ZDNet by posting the download by next week. Contractors can also access the software tool through their state and local association web sites. Contractor’s Wizard was developed by a contractor for contractors, said Jon Taber, president of ContractQuest. Here we have a solution to the contractor’s estimating problem. The Wizard does it for them.Taber said the software tool provides a revolutionary new way for contractors and subcontractors to form solid estimates and job quotes from a desktop computer.The product was designed to empower them with unprecedented control over their marking, budgeting, and management processes as well as providing them with the ability to see where their money was made and lost during a job.Mary Lacey, administrator of Parkway Enterprises, Inc, Yorktown, Va., whose company’s services include all phases of carpentry and landscaping, claims savings of 35 percent on labor costs by using the wizard. Besides developing the Contractor’s Wizard software, ContractQuest, named one of the Top Ten Technology Companies in America’s #1 Wired City 2000, provides wireless-based workgroup tools and online communities to contractor associations. ContractQuest and its partner @Road will be demonstrating the Contractor’s Wizard at the Oregon Building Industry Association Trade Show and Conference on Dec. 6 and 7.The event will be held at the Portland Metropolitan Expo Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Information about the Contractor’s Wizard is available at the ContractQuest website at: http://www.contractquest. “