“Field Materials has given us time back as well as allowed us to do a better job of resourcing. We’re getting better pricing because we can ensure our vendors aren't overcharging us.”
Silverline Construction, based in Gardena, CA, is a trusted concrete contractor serving both residential and commercial clients with high-quality concrete installation, repair, and maintenance services. As demand for their services continued to grow, so did the complexity and volume of their procurement operations. To scale effectively while maintaining their high standards for quality and on-time delivery, Silverline needed a more efficient procurement process to eliminate manual work that was slowing them down.
It used to take 3–4 weeks for invoices to be fully processed and entered into Sage 300 CRE. Now it takes 3–4 days.
Rawlin Lee, General Manager at Grey Mountain, the procurement arm of Silverline Construction, describes how field procurement was inconsistent and manual. Field teams submitted material requests in a variety of formats including handwritten notes, Excel sheets, or exports from third-party programs. Then, the purchasing team had to retype everything to request quotes from suppliers via email.
POs were typically created late — often around the time an invoice arrived — making three-way matching difficult. Invoice approval required printing and scanning a massive amount of paper. One person in accounting would print invoices by the hundreds, scan them into a file drive, then distribute them for project teams to review, code, and return for manual entry into Sage 300 CRE.
The lag time was anywhere from 3 to 4 weeks to get an invoice through their system and ready for payment.
“Transcribing was taking up so much of our time as every invoice is either a scan or paper. Someone has to sit there and retype that information into Sage 300.”
The team rolled out Field Materials as a centralized procurement and invoice management system that fully integrated with their accounting platform, Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate.
Now, invoices sent by vendors are automatically downloaded and read by Field Materials. Instead of printing, scanning, and emailing, project teams can view and code the invoices right in the platform. Approvals are handled in the platform, and the data flows into Sage 300 CRE, eliminating double entry and lag time for invoice processing.
Most importantly, Field Materials made it possible to see and forecast job cost commitments much earlier. POs are now created ahead of time, based on confirmed pricing and quantities. When invoices come in, Rawlin can simply review invoices automatically matched to the POs that have already been approved by project management.
According to Rawlin, the biggest change for Silverline is a greatly improved procurement process. By confirming prices and quantities with vendors before issuing purchase orders, all approvals are handled in advance. This eliminates the need for invoice cost coding, as invoices simply confirm already approved POs. The new approach ensures stronger alignment with vendors and represents a major operational improvement.
“We’re finally able to focus on the front end where we should be focusing, and are able to negotiate with vendors and providers.”
Less than a year into using Field Materials, the team has overhauled its procurement and invoice workflow—saving time, cutting costs, and freeing up resources to focus on growth.
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All job costs are coded and committed early and reconciling invoices is now nearly automatic.
