Field Materials AI cut out two thirds of the time we spent on invoice processing!
For more than 35 years, Bitting Electric has provided commercial and industrial electrical contracting services across the United States. From Kohler generator installations to pump stations, wastewater treatment plants, chiller plants, and complex electrical system upgrades, the company has built its reputation on technical expertise. As project volume increased, however, PO handling and invoice processing began to slow operations down.
Between someone logging it on the computer, in the spreadsheet, rewriting it on paper, and then someone putting it in Sage, we were doing it really 3 times. And now we're just doing it one time.
Before implementing Field Materials AI, Bitting Electric logged all invoices into an Excel spreadsheet in order to catch and track errors. Then, they manually entered invoices into Sage 100 Contractor, and reviewed the paper version again. The spreadsheet was originally introduced as a safeguard against accounting errors, but it created a lot of duplicate work.
Because the invoice processing relied on paper copies kept in the office, everyone involved in approving invoices needed to be physically present in the office. For example, in order to determine the correct project manager that needed to approve an invoice, someone on the AP team had to first find the appropriate job. This made the invoice approval process very cumbersome. Most of the responsibility defaulted to Sarah, who had to review and approve nearly all vendor invoices.
We’re not doing anything twice anymore, and that’s huge for us!
The adoption of Field Materials AI had an immediate impact on how Bitting Electric processes AP invoices. Now everyone involved in approving invoices can easily access them from anywhere. Sarah no longer needs to be physically present in the office in order to review and approve invoices. No more manual searching for paper invoices to determine the appropriate project managers.
Instead, the AI automatically downloads and queues all invoices for review. The team can review invoices from anywhere now that the invoice PDF is instantly visible to everyone. The team now quickly assign invoices to the correct jobs and automatically determine the appropriate project manager. When Sarah finds issues with an invoice, she kicks it back to the PM for resolution. What previously required logging information multiple times is now done once, which reduced the invoice processing time by two-thirds! Once Sarah approves an invoice, Field Materials AI automatically exports it to Sage 100 Contractor.
Field Materials AI has also had a big impact on the field operations. Foremen now reserve purchase orders with the mobile app without needing to call the office. The AI automatically cost-codes the orders based on the information provided by the foremen. This dramatically reduced untracked spending.
As orders are picked up from the vendor or are delivered to the job site, foremen use the mobile app to snap a photo of each delivery slip. In case of POs created in the office, AI automatically checks off all received quantities. In case of will-call POs, AI automatically itemizes them by reading the line items of the delivery slip.
With Field Materials AI, Bitting Electric has gained the visibility and controls over project costs they didn’t have before.
“Field Materials AI allowed me to easily communicate with my team members. And so far I've heard nothing but good things from our field team.”
We were really doing everything three times. Now we’re only doing it once. - Sarah Bitting, Director of Internal Operations
.webp)
Before Field Materials AI, invoice processing was a manual, time consuming process at Bitting Electric. Today, the company has completely revamped how it handles invoice approvals. No more Excel files, stacks of paper invoices and duplicate data entry. AI agents handle the lion share of the work load.
