“You’ve helped us every time we hit a roadblock. That made a big difference.”
Warren Mechanical provides commercial HVAC and plumbing services across the state of Maine. As the premier BIM design, plumbing, heating, and air conditioning contractor in the region, the company designs and installs systems for commercial, institutional, and industrial projects – including hospitals, office buildings, correctional facilities, hotels, and educational institutions.
With multiple active projects and a growing field team, Warren Mechanical needed a solution that would help modernize and streamline their existing procurement operations with FOUNDATION.
Field teams now reserve POs and select the appropriate cost code for the expenses in real-time directly from the app.
Before adopting Field Materials, Warren Mechanical’s procurement process was paper-heavy and fragmented. There was no standardized method for field teams to submit purchase orders, and most records lived in disconnected spreadsheets or physical documents.
Tarsha Innes, who manages procurement and accounting, described the process as repetitive and inefficient. Field staff would often order materials without any formal documentation, leaving the accounting team in the dark until an invoice showed up. At that point, POs had to be created manually—after the fact—just to reconcile expenses in FOUNDATION.
The most persistent issue? Duplicate PO numbers. Without a centralized system, field crews often reused existing PO numbers, creating confusion, increasing admin workload, and complicating cost tracking and approvals.
“In our industry, you can buy one thing and it can be used for different cost codes depending on the project. We had guys reusing PO numbers. Then we’d have to backtrack — figure out who used it, for what, and fix it after the fact,” said Tarsha.
Warren Mechanical rolled out Field Materials as a centralized, field-first procurement platform, fully integrated with FOUNDATION software.
Field teams now reserve POs and select the appropriate cost code for the expenses in real-time directly from the app. When they pick up the materials, they just take a picture of the packing slip, and AI automatically itemizes the materials in the PO by reading the slip. This shift has eliminated spreadsheets, reduced admin burden, and significantly improved job cost accuracy.
The visibility offered by Field Materials has also made it easier to spot and resolve any issues. On the rare occasion a duplicate PO is used by the field staff, it’s easy to trace and fix it quickly without derailing operations. Tarsha credits much of the platform’s success to the ongoing support she received from the Field Materials team.
“Now the guys select their own cost codes when they create the PO. It’s more accurate — and way more efficient,” said Tarsha.
One year into using Field Materials with FOUNDATION, Warren Mechanical has transformed its procurement process – saving time, improving accuracy, and positioning the company for long-term growth.
By adopting Field Materials and integrating it with FOUNDATION, Warren Mechanical has built a modern procurement workflow that’s field-friendly, scalable, and built for the realities of construction.
