With so much volume, we were not matching our invoices to PO line items or collecting packing slips. Field Materials AI has allowed us to match everything and identify costly mistakes!
As one of the most experienced commercial and industrial contractors in Texas, Chaparral Insulation has been ensuring high-quality energy loss prevention using all types of insulation for 40 years. They’ve managed over 16.3k complex projects involving refineries, petrochemical, power plants, manufacturing, food processing, mines, renewable energy sites, chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnical facilities. Across over 28 locations, they also offer industrial painting, scaffolding, maintenance, and firestopping.
There were price discrepancies that we wouldn't even know about until much later.
Before FM construction purchase order software, Chaparral’s ordering process was handled entirely with paper and email. Field crews would either handwrite or type in a requisition form the materials they needed for the job and then email the form to the purchasing team, the supplier, and the project manager. Every order required multiple touchpoints across multiple people before anything was actually ordered.
On the AP side, the sheer volume of invoices made it impossible to verify their accuracy line-by-line. Chaparral processed supplier invoices in bulk without matching them to the corresponding purchase orders and packing slips. This led to billing errors, overcharges, or paying for items that were never received.
Chaparral has 30 branches so local pricing variations were a huge problem. Vendors charged different prices for the same materials purchased by different branches. This lack of visibility into price variances was another major challenge that affected the bottom line.
Field Materials AI has given us the flexibility that the field needs with the clarity that the office needs in order to make the ordering quick and efficient.
Adopting Field Materials AI was a breeze for Chaparral given its seamless integration with Viewpoint Vista. At a click of a button, they imported all their vendors, cost codes, cost types, tax codes, payment terms, and jobs and quickly transformed their whole material procurement process.
Superintendents now submit field requisitions through the mobile app. Once reviewed and approved by the purchasing team, purchase orders (POs) are placed with suppliers in a fraction of the time it used to take. As orders are being delivered on site, field crews snap photos of delivery slips with the mobile and simply submit them without any data entry. The AI then matches the delivery slip to the correct PO and pre-fills received quantities to help keep track of how much was received versus ordered - a critical pre-requisite in the invoice 3-way match.
Hamilton ran a survey of the field crews about their experience with the mobile app. The majority reported a “much smoother, user friendly process that keeps them updated real time and makes searching for materials much easier.”
The purchasing team no longer needs to manually create POs in Viewpoint Vista from supplier quotes. They simply drag and drop a quote PDF into Field Materials, and the AI Agent best suited to interpret this supplier quote is automatically activated and instantly creates an itemized and cost coded PO. After a quick spot check, the purchasing team saves the PO, which is then automatically posted in Viewpoint Vista and forwarded to the supplier for confirmation.
Field Materials AI also quickly became the AP invoice automation solution for Chaparral. When a supplier emails a large batch of invoices, the AI downloads and matches each invoice PDF to the corresponding PO and packing slip without any manual human intervention. Finally Chaparral can instantly see any discrepancies between the original PO and the invoice. No more paying wrong prices or double paying for backordered items with the AI keeping track of quoted priced and received quantities.
Automated three-way match has been transformational for us. It automatically flags when something has an issue.
Field Materials AI has completely transformed the whole material purchasing process at Chaparral, which is now fast, accurate, and paper-free.
